


Better the Devil you Know

by SwearBunny



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Body Horror, Drowning, Gen, Minor Character Death, Suggestions of abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-08-26 06:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16675993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwearBunny/pseuds/SwearBunny
Summary: Joey Drew Studios was at the forefront of progressive and diverse hiring in the 1930s - mainly because only the truly desperate and susceptible would cling to these sorts of working conditions with the kind of grand promises Joey made."If you claim your failures are because these things are soulless, then, damn it, we'll get them a soul!After all, I own thousands of them. "





	1. Dance with the Devil

Joey Drew Studios was hiring.

They seemed like they were always hiring, the ad in the newspaper taking up a good quarter of the page every day. Most wanted ads ran for a few days, maybe a couple of weeks, but the large, bold letters and tagline about imagination and dreams and whatnot had been there for a solid three months now like they just couldn't get anyone to take the gig.

If it hadn't been sitting there so forlorn for so long, Eliza Miller never would have considered it. Even as she approached the studio for her audition she was considering high tailing it back home. She wore her best dress and her nicest shoes, and clutched her horn in shaking hands – what were they going to say? A woman asking to play in a big studio's band, asking to play Jazz and Swing and all other sorts of things that would be considered unseemly for a gal to be involved in. She expected them to scoff the instant they saw her, to send her home without even a glance to her repertoire.

She still expected it when she came her first day for work, being stared down by the music director – a thin man with a sharp chin, serious face and heavy brows that perched atop his eyes like a pair of caterpillars to give him an expression of a man perpetually annoyed with the world around him. Or maybe he was just perpetually annoyed, clothes liberally spattered in ink and shaking it out of his folders of sheet music with curses that were only half a decibel short of shouting.

The music department was in a basement level of a studio filled with a maze of corridors and overlarge pipes – pipes that weren't properly braced, pipes that leaked and split apart at the seams, sending waterfalls of thick black ink cascading over unsuspecting pedestrians, flooding hallways, ruining weeks of paperwork. Every department struggled with the ink, but the music department seemed to have the worst luck with it – the bursting pipes seemed to be targeting poor Sammy Lawrence, inspiring fits of hurling ink-soaked staff paper across the orchestra pit on his way to... somewhere. Wherever it was he disappeared to when he was having one of his breakdowns.

Given the working conditions presented to her in just the first few weeks, Eliza could see why that ad had sat in the paper for so long. It really spoke to the man's tenacity – or perhaps his tenuous grasp on sanity – that Sammy remained as Joey Drew Studio's music director despite the ink, despite the maintenance crew always in the way trying to hastily patch whatever new leak had sprung, despite the nonchalant hand waving of Joey Drew himself, offering little more than some anecdote about hard work and dreams and blah blah blah. Well, a little ink may send Sammy into fits of rage and might have stained her best shoes, but Eliza decided it was no reason to give up on her dream. How many orchestras were even willing to hire women performers in this era? In this economy? To have her foot in the door at all was too good to give up, too enticing. The possibilities that stretched out before her seemed too dazzling – though she often had to remind herself to take a hefty pinch of salt with Joey's slogans and inspirational speeches. Especially when she found herself repeating them to her friends, _You just have to keep dreaming!_ _Dreaming dreaming dreaming!_

But still, how thrilling! This studio was going places, and Eliza was damned and determined to go with it even if it meant hiking her skirt up to her garters to wade through the latest flood, or giving up on wearing good shoes and skirts to the studio at all. She gladly traded her crinolines for more washable trousers, linen that could take a few stains – everyone sported ink stains in their clothes here anyway. No one could really judge her for having pant legs with blackened hems. There was no way she could risk leaving, letting go of that open door, being left behind while the studio succeeded without her. And for what? A few stains? A few ruined pairs of shoes? When her music could live on through posterity? When the opportunity was there to become even more than just a horn in the orchestra? She might get to sing! She might even get to voice a character and _oh_ how magical that would be to be the voice of a beloved character that would remain long after she was gone. It would be downright foolish to leave now and she would never _ever_ stop kicking herself if she let herself be left behind.

And besides, who wouldn't have a grand ole time making music for a darling little character like Bendy? He was so charming, and the animators seemed so delighted with him – right up until he started wandering around the studio.

Or, well, what Joey _said_ was Bendy was wandering around the studio. Save for a few trademark elements, the creature that suddenly appeared and began shambling about didn't look a thing like the cartoon character. Instead of big eyes and sweet little grin, horns that seemed merely cut from the circular shape of his head, this Bendy had long horns that shifted and wiggled a bit as he moved, like they were made of gelatin. His eyes, if there were eyes at all, were hidden under layers of black that seemed to be melting down his face, framing a too-wide grin that trembled around the edges, as if struggling under the strain to keep smiling; a haggard, stained bow tie slumped on a thin neck; and instead of the short, round body of the toon, this Bendy was tall, sharply angular and thin, seeming emaciated, his spine jutting out with ridges that lent him a particularly unsettling air; only one hand had a white glove, the other's fingers a bit too long and sharp to fit the soft roundness of the gloved hand, and it was missing his shiny black dancing shoes.

It was startling, to say the least, hobbling along like it was in pain or like the joints in its knees were too loose. It would be found standing in corridors like he couldn’t see anyone, head whipping around to find the sources of voices or the clicking of heels or the squeaking of floorboards and shuffle after them.

The studio atmosphere changed immediately. People would only traverse the halls in groups, afraid of being cornered alone by the ominous looking creature. Some yelled at it, ushering it out of their work space like chasing off a stray animal searching for scraps among trash. Joey wasn’t any more pleased with the situation than anyone else, loudly arguing with the maintenance crew and the contractors about it, about the money he’d spent on it, and how very very _wrong_ it was. It wasn’t what he wanted! It wasn’t what he paid for!

Joey’s vocal displeasure certainly seemed to do _something_. The creature didn’t roam nearly as much or as widely, but instead took to hiding in various places. Quiet, empty places, where no one expected it to be until they wandered in and discovered they weren’t alone.

Like the musicians’ lounge, where Eliza wandered while Sammy gave them all five for one of his angry ink-splattered fits. She wasn’t expecting to find the grinning creature sitting on the floor by the wall as she entered, and to her credit she managed not to scream – she just hastily retreated and closed the door quickly behind her.

Seeing her reaction, the other band members seemingly guessed at what lay beyond, and grumbled as they headed upstairs to get some air. Eliza, perhaps foolishly, remained where she was, still gripping the door’s handle. It didn’t rattle like someone on the other side was trying to pull it open, there was no force or struggle to suggest she was being pursued. If she listened, she could only hear the dripping of ink from those leaky pipes, and the soft hiccuping of someone trying to steady their breath. No growling, no crashing of furniture or breaking glass. No shattering ceramics or outraged screams – Sammy made more noise than the creature did.

Maybe it had left? Gone out another way while she was retreating?

She wasn’t sure what compelled her to do it, but slowly Eliza cracked the door open and peeked inside again.

Bendy was where she’d left it, on the floor, its back to the wall. Perhaps it had shuffled over a few inches to be in the relative shelter of the table, but it didn’t seem keen on getting up as she pushed the door open a little further and slipped inside. She took a step forward. Then another. Its arms wound more tightly around its chest and its knees drew up higher to hide its face behind, but otherwise… there was no reaction. No swiping at legs from under the table, no growling, no discordant voices chanting in Latin. Instead, it seemed… just sad. Sad and maybe a little afraid of her as she approached.

Not without good reason, she supposed, thinking of all the broken coffee mugs people had hurled at the creature when it startled them. It had never hurt anyone, just ambling around being curious about the goings on of its new home, following the sounds of footsteps and chatter to want to be where the people were and see what was going on, but the response from the crew had definitely been hostile to it. It was a wonder it hadn’t bitten anyone yet. Any stray dog would have lashed out for all the grief the grinning demon had been given.

She gave it a wide berth as she headed for the vending machine, pulling out a bottle of soda – and as inspiration struck her, she pulled out a second one as well. She cracked the caps off both and approached Bendy, stooping down a little ways away to avoid looming over it. “Hello there.”

The horned head whipped around towards her voice, but the body crushed itself closer together. The trembling grin was almost a painful looking grimace instead, and the bony body shivered slightly, like the animation frames were slightly misaligned with each other. It was a little hard to look at, and Eliza had to blink a few times to ease the ache in her eyes. She offered one of the soda bottles towards it. “Would you like one…?”

She still wasn’t sure if it could see, so she sloshed the liquid around gently to make it bubble. Its head tilted towards the sound and after a few moments of deliberation, the gloved hand reached oh so timidly for the offered bottle as though it might be a trap. Eliza held still for him to get his fingers curled around it, trying to be sure he had a decent grip before she let go. “There you go, buddy,” she murmured gently, reminded of the hungry dog she’d tamed in the alleyway behind her apartment. Make yourself small, speak softly, and make no sudden movements. This was how we showed scared animals we meant them no harm.

When Bendy only held the bottle in its hand, she lifted the remaining one to her mouth and took a few demonstrative gulps. Curious, the creature mimicked her, those enormous teeth parting for dark soda to splash over a gray tongue. There was a moment of contemplation before it seemed to perk up at the fizz and sweetness. “Good yeah?” Eliza grinned at the way it guzzled down the rest of the soda, not willing to risk it being taken away perhaps? Some dogs were like that, scarfing down whatever they got hold of out of fear of losing it. Maybe smaller treats would be better for taming this one. And maybe it wasn’t terribly ladylike, but she couldn’t stamp down the snicker that escaped when the creature belched, looking startled by the effects of guzzling carbonated drinks.

“So you’re Bendy, huh?” The question distracted the creature from fiddling with the empty glass bottle, cocking its head towards Eliza as she settled on the floor a little bit closer to it and offered out her hand, palm up, fingers loose. She held it there as an offering, and while she wasn’t sure whether or not it could see, it had fixed the turn of its head in line with her outstretched hand. “My name is Eliza. Eliza Miller.”

The bottle was placed delicately on the floor and the gloved hand reached gingerly to hers. It hovered, and retreated, fingers flexing uncertainly before it reached again. The white fabric of a glove almost reached the tips of her fingers-

“BREAK’S OVER. GET IN THE PIT. ALL OF YOU.” Sammy could have been an opera star; he had a voice that carried through a space easily, penetrating walls and rattling through pipes so that he seemed to be everywhere at once, only slightly muffled by the distance. Eliza and Bendy both gave a start at the noise, the white hand snapping away to his chest like he’d been burned, or caught doing something bad – a child with its hands caught reaching into a cookie jar.

“ _Tsk_.” Eliza stood and stretched, taking a moment to shake out her legs to get the blood flowing again after her crouching. “Sounds like Sammy’s ready to keep playing.” She looked at the creature – at _him_ , at _Bendy_ , she corrected herself quietly – and offered the remaining half of soda. “Do you want the rest? I shouldn’t guzzle it before I play or I’ll get sugar in my horn.”

Bendy took the offered drink, holding it against his chest to keep it steady while he watched her grab a mug, fill it from the sink, and wash down the drink before hurrying for the door. “It was nice to meet you, Bendy!” She glanced back as she pushed through, waving a hand as a kind of habit when hastily leaving a room – and though she couldn’t afford the luxury of time to take a second glance what with Sammy shouting and the sound of hurried footsteps to get to their places, she thought she saw a dark eye peeking through the oozing black veil that covered his face.

Probably just her imagination though.

=

As it turns out, giving a demon sugar was kind of a bad idea.

The band was swinging, the tempo bouncy and quick. Sammy seemed to have relaxed some after his brief disappearance, shoulders shimmying side to side with the music while his baton swung in that familiar 4 point beat, toe tapping. He was always in his best mood when the whole band was really feeling one of his compositions.

The page flipped. The drums were cued in. The baton bounced.

A clarinet let out an ungodly shriek that was definitely not in the sheet music.

The whole thing ground to a sudden clamorous halt. “ _CHARLIE_!” Sammy jabbed the baton in the clarinet’s direction like he really wanted to stab the man in the forehead with it for breaking the spell of his good mood. A few of his fellow woodwinds had similar feelings, judging by the way they squinted sidelong at him. “What the Hell was that, Charlie?!”

Charlie’s hand went to push back his hair, eyes fixed on his mouthpiece. “Sorry, Sammy! I- I just thought I saw something. Broke my reed.”

“Well get another one.” He waved his baton dismissively, glancing around behind them to see if he could spy what might have spooked their clarinet. Seeing nothing, he huffed at the group at large and flipped his score back a few pages. “Alright let’s pick it back up at measure one twenty three. _PERCUSSION!_ DON’T BE LATE THIS TIME. Your cue is ON THREE. NOT FOUR! If you come in on _four_ instead of _three_ I will come back there and kill you.” The baton tapped out a bit of a test tempo on the music stand before lifting up. “And a one and a two...”

The band picked back up. The drums managed to cue in on time. It was a more involved score than the simple background tunes and Foley work for the usual episode, a longer piece the animators would probably be syncing their work to for a while yet. A dance sequence, probably. Their show was the _dancing demon_ after all. If a character was going to dance, well their little devil darling certainly needed some catchy music to move his feet to now didn’t he?

The pages turned. The violins took the forefront of the melody while the trombone slurred a call and response to them. Sammy was relaxing again, into his happy place, seeing his work coming to fruition.

A short series of misplaced timpani hits broke the relative peace and Sammy spun away from his music stand, stepped down from his podium, walked a small circuit and climbed back up, arms spread wide. “What was that?!”

“I saw it! I saw it!” Once the errant device had been fetched from where it had flown across the drum heads, a mallet pointed frantically towards the darkened projection booth. There was no Norman today, no episode prepared for them to feed music and sound effects into running on the projector, just the darkened box that loomed over the orchestra pit.

Sammy glanced up at the box and back at his percussionist. “You shouldn’t have seen _anything_ because the only place you should be _looking_ is RIGHT HERE.” Sammy gestured to the baton in his hand like a magician revealing a trick, but his face was set in a glower like said magician was trying to set the audience on fire with his mind. He shook the baton for good measure. “EYES GO HERE. NOT THERE.” He jabbed it towards the dark booth.

“GOT IT? NOT THERE. HERE. EYES GO _HERE_.”

Sammy offered only a frustrated noise when he turned back to his score. While his music played well put him in a good mood, his music played badly – well not _badly_ but _awkwardly_ with many interruptions – put him in a really really _bad_ mood. The band was quiet and still while he flipped back, trying to decide where to start again.

While the music director grumbled, Eliza’s eyes wandered to the box in question. It was dark inside, but she thought she could make out a slightly darker shadow near the window, a crescent shape? No, a pair of curving horns. A pair of curving horns that rose up far enough along the edge of the window to start to see the edges of a too wide grin

She wasn’t the only one who noticed the teeth judging by a slight jump to her left. Her fellow horn shrank under Sammy’s reproachful glare as he lifted his baton for attention. “Alright, measure two fifty nine. Take the repeat and then follow through to the coda. And a one and a two...”

Eliza tried to keep her attention on Sammy, but now that she was painfully aware of Bendy up in the projectionist’s booth, she couldn’t not glance his way between measures. He had his face pressed up against the glass now, his grin on full display, the inky veil a little smooshed as his teeth parted and a gray tongue peeked out at the people down below. When that didn’t elicit a reaction from the band, his fingers hooked into the corners of his mouth and pulled it down, tongue waggling wildly.

A saxophone honked in surprise, and Eliza counted herself lucky that Sammy couldn’t immediately identify the blat of noise of a horn being snorted into. Exasperated, Sammy’s arms listlessly swung out the last few beats and sent the baton flying across the room behind him. “Whaaaaaaat what what what WHAT are you all _doing_?!” He turned and looked up at the box, but Bendy had ducked out of sight again, leaving Sammy staring at empty shadows. “There is nothing up there! You shouldn’t even be _looking_ up there! SO WATCH THE BATON!”

He moved to gesture with the item in question, only to realize he’d thrown it away in his earlier fit. With a heavy sigh, he left the podium to retrieve it.

As soon as Sammy was off the step, Bendy was back in the window. Film canisters framed his head like giant ears and he wobbled side to side. Someone giggled. Sammy whirled around, baton in hand like a dowsing rod seeking out the offending noise, and any joviality instantly dried up. Bendy, however, looked immensely pleased with himself at even that small reaction of amusement, his grin stretching somehow wider before he ducked out of sight again to hide from Sammy. “I swear to God if you weren’t all so hard to replace...” the music director grumbled and heaved a world-weary sigh as he stomped back up onto the podium, straightening out his shirt. “No more interruptions! I just want to get through to the end of the song. Okay? Okay.”

Once the director’s back was to the booth Bendy had stood up in the window again, mirroring Sammy’s hand gestures while he spoke. The ever-present grin, looking so very pleased with himself at the chaos unfolding down below, created a juxtaposition with the director’s frustrated motions that should not have been as funny as it was. Judging by the sudden fits of coughing around her to muffle snickering, Eliza wasn’t the only one to think so. Sammy stared at his band, baton raised expectantly. Everyone waited with bated breath to be cued in, Sammy with his hands poised letting his narrowed gaze sweep across the waiting orchestra, but instead of bringing down his hands for the beat he spun around to glare at the projection box.

As soon as Sammy so much as twitched in his direction, Bendy had disappeared. How he could duck that fast, Eliza wasn’t sure; she chalked it up to his being not quite human. Sammy glared at the box regardless, suspicious of it as he turned slowly back to his band. “Same place as last time. And a one and a two...”

Perhaps it was a bit childish, but Eliza found it was difficult to keep her focus on Sammy the way she should when she knew Bendy was probably doing something in the window overhead. As far as she could tell, Bendy was _reveling_ in having an audience for his antics – one that didn’t throw things at him because he was too close too suddenly, and no one had screamed yet which was basically a new record between Bendy and the studio crew. It must have been a very different experience from his past couple of months of shuffling around the studio, and while she couldn’t blame him for milking the experience for all it was worth, she was also dreading what Sammy would do when he caught him in the act interrupting his work.

They got a bit of a reprieve from his antics while the song progressed, moving from the jazzy swing to the more soulful waltz of the next act. Sammy wasn’t quite as relaxed as he was the first time he got into the groove of his song, but his shoulders had eased from their hunch and he swayed side to side in a small dance while he counted out the beat under his breath, “One two three, one two three, one two three...”

Movements among the shadows overhead caught her gaze and Eliza couldn’t help her curiosity. Bendy had found one of Wally’s mops – a very recently used one judging from the way it was dripping – and held it upside down in his arms as his partner for the waltz. Eliza choked on a laugh, earning a coughing fit that got a narrow-eyed glare from Sammy as she reached for her water and tried not to make eye contact.

Maybe the waltz was easier for him? Bendy seemed to have a bit of trouble with his legs to keep up with a fast paced swing like the first act but he was still _The Dancing Demon._ Was it frustrating for him, Eliza wondered, to not be able to move as quick as his title demanded? Did it make him sad that he couldn’t dance the way he was expected to? Or maybe he just needed more time? Maybe he’d grow into it, in a way? Maybe he’d grow into his lanky limbs and too large grin given enough time, fill out the fragile looking form a bit more. Maybe if he had time he’d grow into his title, and be dancing in the halls the way Joey wanted him to be.

Her musing was interrupted by the faint _splat_ of the wet mop bristles hitting the booth’s window and the blat of surprised horns and honk of woodwinds. The baton went flying to the side this time, Sammy’s hands on his face slowly massaging his eyes and temples as he fought for composure in the face of his giggling orchestra.

Giggling which only escalated from the noise of Bendy _hurling_ Wally’s mop down the stairwell to hide the evidence and ducking out of sight. There was still diluted ink splattered on the window when Sammy turned and glared up at the booth. “That’s _it_. Whoever is up there is about to get my shoe in their ass,” the music director growled, pushing up his sleeves as he stormed towards the stairwell. Bendy’s grin peeked over the box’s edge once more before hiding away in the shadows.

Eliza winced as Sammy stomped his way up the stairs. Oh this wouldn’t end well, would it?

The light flicked on in the projection box and Sammy moved into view from the door, hands on his hips, looking around the space for the source of his band’s distraction. He shuffled around boxes and checked behind the projectors, behind doors, but it was a relatively small space, made smaller with the light illuminating its dimensions. Shoulders hiked in frustration, he moved to the window to gesture at his band, to flourish out his arms to show there was nothing upstairs that should be drawing their attention – and his face shifted. The narrowed glare turned to wide eyed alarm and the band shuffled anxiously in their seats as Sammy turned and ran back down the stairs.

The timpani rang out. Just quietly. The merest tap of a finger against the large drum head.

And someone screamed.

Immediately there was chaos, the band fleeing the orchestra pit in alarm and confusion and a blend of the two. Eliza turned, startled by the ruckus but still drawn by curiosity to finds its source.

Bendy was somehow there, behind the drums and gongs and bells. How he had gotten from the projection booth to the orchestra pit undetected in the time Sammy had gone upstairs, she couldn’t begin to fathom, but here he was. Huddled back against the projector screen wall while the majority of the band ran away from him.

The playfulness his grin had built up earlier had vanished, the edges trembling in the same sort of grimace she’d seen before in the lounge. His arms had pulled close to his frail body, and the dripping black veil seemed to be runnier, spreading to his limbs, leaving a dark trail in his wake. He seemed confused, and why wouldn’t he be? They’d been tolerating him when he’d been at a distance, behind the glass – but now they were scared, now they were loud. Maybe it was the noise alone that made it so alarming for him? What with the way he navigated the studio, always cocking his head towards footsteps to follow; what with the way he didn’t seem to see very well, and the way sound carried through the huge chamber with its acoustic layout.

Eliza stood. In the chaos around her, she was sure he couldn’t hear her chair squeak. She should move closer, cautiously. She could reach out to him perhaps. Calm him down maybe. Help him. He seemed so hurt and confused…

A rough hand on her arm yanked her away. She stumbled on the steps, but the man’s grasp didn’t let up for her to retrieve her errant shoe until they were outside the music department. Sammy’s voice screaming for Joey to ‘come get your thing’ carried through the halls, through the pipes. Eliza shook off his hand and swatted his arm. Bobby, her fellow horn player, managed to look offended at the reproach. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing manhandlin’ a woman like that?”

“You were just standing there like a deer in the road! What was I supposed to do?!”

“You were supposed to let me handle it myself!”

“And get eaten? Get your soul stolen by a demon?!”

“He ain’t done nobody no harm!” The sentiment would have carried more weight if it weren’t for her missing shoe, if it weren’t for the drawl that crept up in her anger. The thud of a bare foot didn’t have the same impact as the stomping of a firm heel. The drawl of a southerner didn’t have the same impact as the clipped tones of an educated city woman. Maybe it would have been different if she’d had her shoe, if she’d controlled her tone. Maybe they would have taken her more seriously, listened to her more quickly.

But maybe it didn’t matter; maybe it would never matter. Bobby waved a dismissive hand. “Bah! Fine! Get eaten next time! See if I care!” He shoved through the loitering musicians to head upstairs, already pulling a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.

Eliza glared at his retreating back, straightening herself out before heading back into the pit. Her single shoe clicked oddly in the new silence of the abandoned auditorium. New silence in which she had hoped to hear the soft breathing of before, to hear some sign of where he’d hidden himself this time. But there was no sign of Bendy on the stage.

She fetched her shoe, balancing awkwardly to fit it back onto her foot before looking around. No one hiding in the projection booth to make silly faces, the lights still on from Sammy’s hasty retreat. No oddly bulging curtains. No misplaced instruments but for the ones left behind in the chaos of the band fleeing. Nothing broken. It was as though the demon had never been there except for the streaky puddle in the percussion section that simply led straight into a wall.

Eliza smoothed her palm over the surface of the wall, searching for seams, searching for notches or imperfections that might reveal a hidden door, a secret corridor for sneaking around the studio; but it was smooth and solid. No sign of a door, no secrets to reveal with a hidden button, and no clear indication of how Bendy got through. Was it magic? Was it because of what he was, a demon? Was he a demon at all? Sure, the character was a demon, a little devil darling, a mischief maker with a heart of gold, but was Bendy in the flesh – so to speak – actually a demon? He didn’t seem too interested in the usual demon-y things. He didn’t seem interested in collecting souls or tormenting those around him. What torment he did bring seemed to be an accident, brought about by the superstitions of those he interacted with. It seemed to make him sad to upset them.

Which was rather in character, wasn’t it? Bendy of the cartoons wanted _so badly_ to make friends. He cried when his snowman melted. He fled from confrontation with Boris. He tried his best to be helpful to people. And what would happen to a character like that, if he was made monstrous so people were scared of him? What would happen to him if he was turned away constantly? If he was rejected by everyone around him? If it was impossible to make the friends he was so desperate for?

What would happen to someone so sweet-natured, to be treated so badly? A dog will be sweet if you’re kind to it, a dog will love you if you only show it a little love in return. But if you start to beat it, kick it, hurt it, starve it? No doubt it’ll lash out and bite.

Would Bendy lash out? Would he bite? All anyone seemed to do was to kick the scared pup. How long would that sweet and cowardly nature tolerate the treatment he was being put through?

“Fascinating what one can do with a little imagination, isn’t it?” Eliza flattened herself to the wall in alarm of the voice to her left, hand over her frantically beating heart. She must have been quite absorbed in her study of the wall to not have heard Joey Drew approaching, leaning heavily on his cane. He offered her only a faint grin, turning his attention to the wall she’d been staring at, perhaps trying to see what had been so interesting to her. She wasn’t sure if he saw the smears of black ink on the floor that led to it. She wasn’t sure if his statement had been addressed to her, or just an idle musing, or if it was one of his anecdotes to try to unruffle Sammy’s ruffled feathers.

Sammy hovered behind him, stewing. His face was red with frustration, his eyes almost completely hidden in the shadow of his furrowed brow. Eliza scooted away from the imminent explosion, but neither man seemed to notice her retreat. Joey merely launched into one of his spiels about belief and trust and how they’re going to get it right next time while Sammy fretted about the demon sneaking around interrupting their rehearsals and Joey’s unwillingness to find a temporary solution for both the demon and the ink that plagued them.

Well. It seemed like rehearsal was off for now. The band was scattered and some had left together to get a few drinks for their frazzled nerves. A couple of other girls were chatting the halls, their tones fretful as they wondered what Joey would do about the demon stalking them.

If he was stalking anyone he was doing a damn poor job of it. Eliza couldn’t find him anywhere.

If he wanted to hide, she supposed he had good reason for it. Still, she was reluctant to leave without … what?

Without what?

Patting him on the head? Telling him he was okay? Telling him it wasn’t his fault? That he didn’t do anything wrong? He was a seven foot tall demon creature, not a child with a skinned knee.

And yet…

Well. If he wanted to hide, there was little she could do about it. With all the sublevels of the studio, she’d never find him on her own at this rate, but tomorrow was another day. Maybe tomorrow would be better.

The studio was mostly deserted for the night by the time she gave up her search. Before she left, she bought a soda from the vending machine and cracked the top off to leave it on the lounge’s table. A note card was neatly folded next to it with Bendy’s name written on it – though she wasn’t sure if he could read. So a crude doodle of his face would have to suffice. A circle for his head. A smaller circle for the cut out of his horns. A couple of dots for eyes and a little smile. And a little heart. Just because.

There. Since Wally was already gone home, if the bottle was drank by the time she came in tomorrow, she’d know Bendy had gotten it. Hopefully he would understand it was a gift for him. Had he ever received a gift before? What a sad thought. She’ll have to do something about that.


	2. The Devil is Not so Black as he is Painted

Well tomorrow certainly was a day. Perhaps not the day Eliza had hoped to walk into but a day nonetheless.

Drama had erupted in the music department, but not from Bendy this time, thankfully, no. Susie was in tears, looking for answers. Sammy was apologetic, but had no control over the change in casting. The new gal – Allison something-or-other – looked like she wanted to be anywhere but there right then, like she was doing her damnedest to fall through the cracks in the floor while holding back tears. Eliza could relate – she’d also love to be _anywhere_ but right here right now. _Hoo boy_.

There wasn’t much the band could do but fiddle with their music uncomfortably while Sammy tried to calm Susie down, so Norman, blessed man that he is, subtly sent them all on a break until things were sorted out and they could continue with recording.

“I don’t know what Joey’s thinking, stirring up drama between dames,” Johnny scoffed as he kicked his feet up on the break room table, flicking the ashes off his cigarette. An effort not to overhear Susie’s tearful demands for explanation had sent more than a handful of the music department fleeing to the upstairs break rooms, mingling with the writers and animators that rarely crossed their paths until the very end of production when it was all being compiled together. No one looked particularly comfortable with the sudden change in Alice’s actor and the emotional toll it was taking on both Susie and Allison. In some ways it was a reminder of how fickle their careers could be, but Joey was quick to send out a memo to reassure everyone. Or, not so much reassure as to remind them to trust in his leadership, and that it would all be better for the studio in the long run.

“I think Joey lives for the drama, honestly.” Cards were dealt out around glass bottles and Johnny’s shoes. Eliza listened to the chatter around her and fidgeted with her hand, rearranging them by value. “You remember what happened with Henry don’t you?”

“Henry was before my time.”

“Henry Stein? The guy that designed our little mascot turned horror show? Joey snuck off and copyrighted his characters, pulled the rug right out from under him. Henry didn’t have the rights to any of it anymore. And Joey’s plastering it all over everything under the sun and you bet Henry’s not seeing a nickel of it coming his way for his character, doesn’t get any say in where it goes. So he got fed up and took off. Can’t say that I blame him.”

There was a quiet murmur of agreement. Coins clinked softly as they were piled into the center of the table. “Still, it’s impressive what Joey’s done with it. What he’s planning to do with it. He’s got such big ideas for this place.”

“Think any of it will hash out?”

“I think he certainly believes it will.”

Eliza folded in her hand. The lounge was too packed, too stuffy – she’d come upstairs to avoid eavesdropping just to walk into gossip. Gossip about Susie, gossip about Joey, gossip about people that weren’t even there anymore. The rumor mills were working overtime, it seemed. She traded her lost nickels for a walk through the halls, thumbs hooked in her pockets. The bottle she’d left for Bendy was gone by the time she’d gotten in that morning – she hoped that was a good sign, that he’d gotten his gift and not that one of the early risers had just thrown it away, but she still hadn’t seen sign of the devil.

If Joey had gotten after him the way Sammy wanted him to, maybe he was avoiding the music department. Though if Sammy had his druthers, Bendy’d be out on the stoop like an unwanted cat. It must be hard, she reasoned, to go around knowing everyone hates you because of the way you look. It must be hard to see the revulsion in their faces, when all you want to do is to make them smile.

“You look a million miles away from here.” A voice to her right snapped her out of her thoughts, leaping to the side with her hand on her chest. There was a grinning face waiting for her, but not quite the one she’d been thinking of. “Sorry, Ellie, I wasn’t trying to scare ya.”

“I guess I am a million miles away,” she sighed, smiling sheepishly as she fell into step beside the man, letting him hook his arm around hers for their stroll. “I’ve just been thinking about someone lately.”

“Oh?” The tone of scandalous intrigue made her roll her eyes, though she grinned nonetheless. “What’s this? Someone caught Miss Miller’s eye?”

“It’s not like that, Casper-”

“Don’t tell me. Let me guess. It’s that blonde gal down in accounting, the one that always wears a necktie.”

“Casper-”

“It’s that brunette in the writing department, the one with the red lipstick that only wears the _latest trends from Paris after all black goes with everything_.”

“No, if you would just-”

“I hope it’s not the little redhead in the violins.”

“I would never dream of making a move on your girl, Casper.” Eliza laughed softly, giving his hand a consolatory pat. Casper was a sweetheart, a bit of a dandy; a soft-handed sort of gentleman; and a shameless flirt. She’d rebuffed his advances time and again for a while, but he seemed to keep coming back to her for more, his gaze calculating like there was something in plain sight that he just wasn’t seeing.

And when he’d found it, Eliza had been mortified. Terrified, even. If word got out that she was a bit… strange… well it was one thing to hire a woman in this industry, it was quite another to hire a woman that was, as they say, _lavender_.

But Casper himself was, well, a gentleman who _throws a party with an open guest list_ , as they say, and getting chummy together kept people from talking. Getting chummy for safety turned into becoming confidantes, bosom buddies; and though Casper’s attentions of late had drifted to a certain violinist, it was far less frowned upon for a man to walk arm in arm with two ladies than it would be for her to walk alone.

“Then who is it drawing my dear Ellie’s attention away from me?” he sighed, arm draping dramatically over his eyes. “Is this the life I am doomed to live? Seeing the women I love leave me for another?”

She rolled her eyes. “Bendy.”

He peeked out from under his arm, a carefully groomed eyebrow cocked up towards his hairline. “Beg your pardon?”

“I was thinking about Bendy,” she sighed. “About how sad he must be.”

Casper gave her a bit of a searching look, his arm having left his face to anchor a hand in his pocket instead. “He doesn’t look sad to me. He just looks creepy.”

“See that’s the thing exactly. He _looks_ scary, sure, he’s really tall and he walks funny and you can’t see his eyes and his teeth are too big yeah I get that; but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Well, Ellie, I mean… he is a _demon_...”

“Is he though?” Casper’s eyes were growing narrower, more concerned the longer Eliza went on. “He hasn’t hurt anyone, he hasn’t even _tried_ to hurt anyone. He’s more scared of us than we are of him, and damn if that isn’t saying something because folk are real damn scared of him. Did you hear what happened downstairs yesterday? The poor thing must have been scared out of his mind.”

“It’s real damn weird hearing you call a literal demon ‘the poor thing’, Ellie.”

Eliza sighed and pulled him to a halt, leaning against the wall. Casper leaned next to her, arms folded, one leg bent with his toe on the floor, his eyebrows raised in curiosity and concern. “I’ve been watching him. I talked to him. I was in a room alone with him. I gave him every opening to hurt me if he wanted to – and he was scared of me. What’s that say about him, if he’s really a demon? If he’s really a demon, he’s a pretty shitty one, right? He had every opportunity to do something, and all we did was drink a couple sodas together. He acted up in the projector booth, because it made folk laugh, because he’s _the same Bendy_ that we make here, he just looks a little different.” Eliza sighed and turned towards Casper. “God help me, I’ve been trying to find him. I _want_ to talk to him. I want to know if he _can_ talk.”

Casper’s lips pressed into a thin, tight line. “Ellie don’t you think this is a bit dangerous? I mean, I know we play along with Joey’s weird little totems and all but buddying up with the literal devil? Sounds to me like a good way to get to Hell in a hurry.”

Eliza’s mouth quirked up in a wry little smirk. “Well Mama always said I was going to Hell for playing Jazz, and the preachers say I’m going there for other reasons. Might as well make friends with the demons on my way down.”

 

==

 

It was almost strange to go a whole day without hearing someone running from Bendy, or hear a scream because he startled them. Or maybe she was only noticing the relative silence now that she was trying to find him. Did he often go days without making an appearance? Was this normal? She’d never paid it much mind, between her actual job and the problems with the ink, and all the other strange things that went on around the studio, but now she was wishing she had.

He didn’t seem keen to come out of hiding, so Eliza made plans to stay late. The pretense was reserving a practice booth to work on a solo she wanted to audition for, time marked for well into the evening, but the reality was a pair of sodas, a packed lunch for two, and a pack of cards sitting on the music lounge table.

_Fwip. Fwip._ Playing cards had sort of a curious sound to them, the way the shiny coating slid against itself, the way it slapped together while being shuffled, the way it sliced through the air when tossed into a pile. She found herself counting them while she shuffled, bored in the quiet of the mostly empty studio. The clock ticking on the wall was her only company, Bendy’s little legs swinging back and forth in a merry jig as an hour turned to two, turned to three.

After three more rounds of solitaire, when the sound of the cards hitting the table and the quiet fizz of an open soda bottle didn’t seem to be enough to draw attention, Eliza fetched and tuned up a mandolin instead. The horn would be too loud and while she wanted him to notice she was there she didn’t want to scare him off with sheer volume so the mandolin it was, fumbling around until she found the right chords to play their theme song. Bendy’s theme.

“ _I’m the Dancing Demon watch me twirl and hop and spin..._ ” She kept her voice low while she played, trying not to watch the door. _A watched pot never boils_ , after all. _“_ _I’m quick to give a smile, you should see my happy grin...”_

The _plink plunk ping_ of her tuning must have drawn him out of hiding, finally; and while she was actively attempting to lure him out, that gloved hand curling around the door as it creaked open wasn’t any less ominous. The too-big grin that peeked around the edge of the wood was still just as unsettling, but she kept her gaze to the middle distance to let him decide if he wanted to approach. Some dogs didn’t like to be watched when they were scared, taking eye contact as a challenge or a threat.

Bendy shuffled into the lounge while Eliza opted to hum the melody line, his hands held close to his chest as he watched her play. The door swung closed behind him with a quiet click of the latch, but he didn’t approach any closer. He waited. He wrung the fingers of his gloved hand while he seemed to be waiting for something. Some sort of cue? Permission maybe?

“ _Cuz I’m the Dancing Demon and I’d love to dance with you...”_ Eliza turned her attention to him finally, offering him a smile. “Hi again, Bendy. Would you like to sit down?”

He looked uncertain at the offer, his strained grin turned to that awkward grimace as he shuffled closer and maneuvered himself into the folding chair. His spindly limbs folded awkwardly in a chair too short for his legs, but if he was uncomfortable he didn’t voice his displeasure. He merely canted his head towards Eliza, like he wasn’t quite sure what to think of her.

Which was fair, she reasoned. She didn’t yet know what to think of him either.

“Are you hungry?” Eliza pulled a pair of sandwiches wrapped in butcher’s paper from the lunch box she’d packed, unfolded one and slid it in front of him as an offering. “I made meatloaf sandwiches – my grandma’s recipe.”

He stared at it – or Eliza supposed he was staring at it, she couldn’t quite see his eyes – while she unpacked the rest of the meal: an apple she cored and cut into wedges; a half dozen boiled eggs, halved with salt and pepper; chicken that had been deboned and fried; and dessert. “I brought some banana bread. My neighbor gave me a new cookbook as ‘ _a means to better my prospects for a husband’_.” Eliza snorted, shaking her head as she laid out the meal between them. “She is barking up entirely the wrong tree, I’m afraid.”

Bendy seemed confused by the spread, hands fidgeting uncertainly as he looked around the table. Eliza decided leading by example was the best way to go about it, and unwrapped her sandwich to take a bite. “I thought it’d be nice to share a meal as a way to get to know each other.”

Uncertain still, Bendy moved to pick up what had been offered to him, trying to mimic Eliza. The too-large mouth made nibbling somewhat pointless, and he managed to bite down on a bit of paper along with half the sandwich. Luckily the paper didn’t seem to deter him as he chewed, somehow looking pensive about it. Eliza decided to take it as a good sign when that large mouth opened again and the rest of the sandwich went in with more enthusiasm and less of the brown paper. “Do you like it? The secret’s in the ham hock – it’s kinda like bacon, I guess, but better in my opinion.”

His hands hovered over the rest of the offered meal, seeming like he was trying to decide if he was allowed to have it. Eliza nudged the apple to him. “Feel free, Bendy. Eat as much as you like. I packed so much so that I could share it with you.”

Apparently those were the magic words. The apples, the eggs, the chicken were gobbled up with gusto, and Eliza couldn’t help but feel sorry for the sight. Did Joey feed him? Could he starve to death, being what he was, or would he continue to shuffle around as emaciated as the dead but unable to die? She cut her sandwich in half and slid the uneaten portion to him, which he eagerly devoured. His smile had relaxed into something more genuine, and at a closer distance she could see for certain the black eye that peeked from the goopy veil over his face. It shifted her way, seeming to realize he was being watched, and he shrank back in response as the veil covered it again.

“You’re alright, you’re alright,” she hurried to assure him. “I don’t mean to stare. It was just nice to see you enjoying yourself.” He fidgeted with his glove, his grin shaky again, trembling around the edges. Was he embarrassed? Or was he upset that she’d been staring? Hoping to lighten the mood to what it was before, she cut a thick slice of banana bread and placed it in front of him. “Now the recipe calls for walnuts and raisins but I’m not keen on either of those so instead it’s got blueberries and honey. I think it goes well with the banana flavor.”

Bendy was slower to eat the dessert, though whether that was because he’d gotten his fill with the meal or because he was embarrassed about being watched, she couldn’t be sure, but it was nice to see him savoring it, to see the way his shoulders had relaxed and the way his face shifted while he chewed. The black eye had emerged again, squinted slightly in satisfaction, and Eliza could see the little notch in the side like the animation model’s eyes. They sat in a companionable silence while Eliza packed away the discarded papers from their meal and cut a couple more slices from the loaf. She took one for herself, leaving the rest as an option if he still wanted more.

“Do you… talk…?” She tore the edges off her bread, nibbling on them idly while she watched him. The dark eye opened to stare at her in return, and the way he swallowed was audibly anxious. The _gulp_ of someone that dreaded what was about to come. His gaze slid away from Eliza.

“Joey says I sound wrong.” The voice was raspy, deeper than the voice the actor had given him, as if Vincent had the flu while recording, but it was close. There were similar tones to it, similar lilts to the words, the accent was right, but it was the difference between a trumpet and a baritone. Bigger instrument, deeper sound. Bigger chest, deeper voice.

“Joey Drew strikes me as a man that doesn’t leave a lot of room for compromise,” Eliza sniffed, placing another piece of bread in front of him almost out of habit: when someone is upset, we feed them, so sayeth the southern hostess. “I think you sound fine. Maybe not exactly like the recordings, but you’re a lot taller – voices change when you get bigger.”

“Joey wants me to sound like the recordings.”

“And he wants Walt Disney to get hit by a bus. We don’t always get what we want in life.”

That earned a small, surprised sound from the demon that Eliza could have almost sworn was a smothered laugh. She could see the white parts of his face more clearly, the roundness of his design, and it made her wonder again – would he grow into his body, like a child coming of age? Would he fill out a bit more and be more on model, less frightening to look at? She tried to imagine this skinny, ambling thing with a bit more flesh to his bony frame – he could be quite handsome, those long legs with a pair of tailored slacks, a tailed jacket, oh and maybe a pair of spats? A little white on his legs would certainly draw attention to his dancing feet. He wouldn’t be the round little trickster like the model sheets, but he could be quite elegant and how could Joey be mad at him then?

Well. Maybe he would fill out and grow if she kept feeding him. A good meal certainly seemed to improve his mood. He didn’t seem as desperately hungry now, oversized hands copying the way Eliza tore her bread into small chunks to place them on his tongue.

“So where did you… come from, exactly?” It was a bit of an awkward way to broach the topic, she’d be the first to admit that. That dark eye turned her way, quiet for a moment as he seemed to size her up. Was he searching for something? She supposed she couldn’t fault him for being leery of the question, given the fact that he was here through clearly unnatural means. If others started doing the same, it would be chaos in a hot second.

But he seemed to find, or maybe not find, what he was looking for. The glossy black eye dropped back down to the bread in his hands. “The ink machine.”

Eliza glanced up at the pipes across the ceiling, brow furrowed in confusion. “The ink machine?” For all its nuisance and flooding, for all the stained hems and Sammy’s tantrums, she’d never really considered what the machine _did_. _The Ink Machine_ sounded like something for the animators to use, something automated to place ink over pencil sketches. Nobody had really offered her an explanation about it and, well, the crew seemed to be discouraged from asking too many questions.

Too many questions meant you didn’t trust the ‘leadership’. Too many questions got you fired. And few people could afford that sort of risk right now.

“I came from the Ink Machine,” Bendy confirmed, no longer eating the bread but still tearing off chunks and letting it crumble into a little pile, a monument to his fidgeting.

Eliza was still considering the pipes overhead, her brow furrowed. “So the ink machine… makes people?” No that couldn’t be right. That sounded like anti-industrialist propaganda, posters full of human-shaped machines that would replace the working force. She laughed sheepishly. “It couldn’t possibly...”

“Well, no. Not yet.” He had run out of bread and settled instead for picking at the seam of his glove, the lanky form hunched over and curled in on itself. “I didn’t come out right. No one has come out _right_ yet.”

“Are there… more like you somewhere?”

His shoulders bunched up, head sinking down between them. “No. No one like me.”

_This child speaks in riddles_ , Eliza mused with a slight frown, trying to piece together the things he was saying. Of course a demon would speak in a roundabout way, but it didn’t make it less frustrating. What did he mean _no one like him_ if _no one has come out right_? Was he saying he was the only one to come from it? Her gut said no, but she desperately hoped it meant yes. She didn’t want to think of the possibility of more of these sad creatures ambling about, subjected to Joey’s ire.

“I’m sorry about Sammy, the other day.” Bendy’s form had started to shiver in that eye-aching way, so Eliza pressed forward to another topic. “I was looking for you after what happened – where were you hiding?”

“I’m supposed to stay in Mister Connor’s office.” He said it so much like a child about to be reprimanded, his voice soft like he was afraid to be caught. Perhaps it was the way Bendy shrank in on himself, the way he actively tried to make himself smaller and less threatening, that made it easy for Eliza to think of him as a child. Maybe it was the way he shrank and shivered and avoided eye contact, or maybe it was just how very sad he was when he was turned away by the man that made him. “Joey told me to stay put.”

“And you’re allowed out at night?”

He shrank further, sinking a little under the table to hide. “Not… exactly…”

Eliza couldn’t hide an amused little snort. “Well you _are_ a tricky little devil! Sneaking out of your room is pretty low on the list of devilish things to do.” The black eye focused on her, wide and round, shiny like the wet ink puddled on the floor. Who taught this child how to make those sad eyes with that big grin still on his face? “I’m not going to tattle on you, don’t worry.”

“Joey doesn’t like me wandering around.” He shrank down a little lower. “Joey doesn’t like _me_...”

“Well _I_ like you, for what it’s worth.”

He glanced up at that, surprise in his one visible eye, but quickly retreated back down again.

“Joey says I’m broken...”

“We’re all broken people here.”

“I _try_ to be good...”

“Bendy...” The trembling form was hard to look at, but Eliza held his dripping gaze despite the way it made her eyes ache. “Being made differently from what he wanted doesn’t make you bad. Okay?” Habit made her hand reach for him, to comfort him, but the way he twitched at the approach made her hesitate and ultimately withdraw. He was so timid for something so big and otherworldly. “There’s no rule against making Sammy mad; honestly I think it’s part of his work contract to have a daily tantrum.”

There was a muffled sound, a slightly watery sound, that may have been an aborted giggle. Eliza spied that the white glove had left the table to attempt in vain to cover his too-large grin. She smiled a little, chin resting in her palm. “And there’s no rule against making faces at the orchestra, or dancing with a mop. You’re a better dancer than Wally is, that’s for sure. I’m sure the mop was _delighted_ to have a competent partner for once.”

She still wondered how he had gotten from the box to the band in the blink of an eye, how he had disappeared through the wall like that, how he went from being non existent to walking around after coming from the ink machine… so many things she wanted to know. He seemed desperate for the company, but she still worried that too many questions would drive him away. There was a delicate balance that needed to be maintained, between her own curiosity and his apparent fear.

The questions could wait until he wasn’t so worked up, when he wasn’t struggling to pick himself back up from the awkward way he’d wedged under the table. Eliza picked up her pack of cards, shuffling them idly to give her gaze somewhere else to go, rather than fixed on the nervous creature trying to right himself in a chair that was still too small for his legs. “Wally thinks he’s the next Bing Crosby,” she continued casually, giving the cards a slight pinch so they sprang from one hand to the other, “just waiting for Sammy and Joey to notice his talent and get his big break – and I’m starting to suspect that he isn’t forgetting his mops in the halls so much as they’re trying to run away from that nose-singing of his.”

The snort and snuffle of muffled snickering that she received earned a slight quirk of her lips, but she tried to keep her features schooled while she cut the deck into fourths and slid them together. “I don’t think Wally really understands what it _is_ about crooners that appeals to an audience, though, you know? We musicians, we’re _artists_ , we’re a sensitive soul – and Sammy’s sensitive soul is probably locked in a drawer somewhere in his house for safekeeping. I mean he’s clearly not using it around here. Either that or his delicate soul is just constantly _offended_.”

“Are you a sensitive soul?” The amusement in Bendy’s raspy voice was more gratifying than it really had any right to be.

“Who, me? Nah I’m a stone cold fox.” Eliza offered a nonchalant shrug. “Well I mean I’ve never cried over a banjo piece the way some people in this studio have but I do like to think of myself as a professional _Artiste_. But, you know,” another shrug, more exaggerated, “when you’re a woman, you get emotional about how tiny a piccolo trumpet is once and you lose all credibility.”

She clutched the cards to her chest, pitching her voice higher. “But they’re _so smaaaallll_!”

Bendy’s voice may have been a little raspy when he spoke, but his giggle was right on the mark for his actor’s work. Eliza grinned at him fondly from across the table, plopping her chin down in her palm to watch him laugh. It seemed a sad trickster took to mirth the way a thirsty man took to water in the desert; the joke wasn’t even all that funny, if Eliza was being honest, but Bendy seemed to be absolutely delighted by it – or he seemed like he really needed a reason to laugh, however meager it was. His gloved fingers wiped at his eyes as he settled down to a calmer chortle, brushing away part of the black curtain that lingered over his face. Eliza was thrilled to see a second shiny black eye under all that ink, and if she squinted she could _almost_ see the characteristic widows peak. _Almost_. The goopy veil was less runny but still quite wet it seemed, trailing down to obscure his features. “There’s our Little Devil Darling,” she crooned soothingly. “You’re still our same sweet Bendy, just a little tall is all.”

The smile on the devil’s face was almost what one might call sheepish, but this time there was no quiver around the edges, just a faint gray tint in the space between teeth and eyes. Eliza couldn’t help but offer a chuckle of her own, giving the cards in her hands one last quick shuffle before dealing them out. “Do you know how to play poker?”

Bendy took a few tries to gather the cards off the table, his gloved hand having some trouble grabbing hold of the slick surface of comparatively tiny papers. The claws of his other hand had more success. “I know there’s aces and someone usually cheats.”

“A good starting point.” Eliza fished out a few nickles and pennies from her pocket, setting them to the side. “Do you want to learn?”

It was a nice way to squirrel away a few extra hours, the studio quiet but for the ticking of the dancing clock on the wall and the clinking of coins on the table, broken only by the occasional bout of soft laughter. Given a little space and a sympathetic ear, Bendy was fairly accurate to his character; more than once Eliza caught the trickster trying to stash cards in the wrist of his glove, and more than once Bendy laughingly denied it despite being caught dead to rights. His gestures were big, grand, expressive things when he relaxed a little to let his arms move away from their defensive position, exaggerated in that cartoonish way. The more Eliza got him to talk, the more mobile his expressions became too: eyes shifting about without clear boundaries, eyebrows pulling the edges of his face here and there like they were pulling against a rubber barrier, but his mouth seemed almost stuck in that stretched grin.

“It’s late,” Eliza sighed at the clock, the hands well past ten and edging towards eleven. She tilted her head towards the creature across the table, lips pressed thin, pensive. “Do you sleep?”

“Sometimes, when it’s really really quiet.” Bendy shuffled his cards together and slid them towards her to put away. “I’ve been trying to sleep when Joey’s here, so that I’m not bored or in the way in Mister Connor’s office, but it’s… not always easy to sleep.”

“Well, maybe now that you’ve got a full belly it’ll come more quickly for you tonight.”

She wrapped the remaining banana bread in its paper at the center of the table and closed the now empty lunch box. “And regardless of what Joey says, I think you’re exactly what you’re supposed to be.”

Bendy regarded his mismatched hands, a small, curious frown pulling at the edges of his mouth. “Why do you think that?”

“Because people change. People grow. And since you’re a person too, maybe you’ll grow and change – we’ll just have to see. And Joey’ll see it too.” Eliza stood, sliding the wrapped parcel towards him. “I should get going off to home. You hang on to this. You can eat the rest of it if you get hungry later.” The pack of cards was tossed into her bag. “Let’s have dinner again soon, okay? Monday night.”

Bendy took the loaf in his hand, looking at it quizzically before turning his questioning stare towards Eliza. He was quiet for a moment, seeming hesitant to break whatever spell of goodwill had graced him. “Why are you doing this…?”

She hesitated a moment in gathering her things, mandolin in the crook of her arm. “Well…I suppose it’s because I’ve heard what Joey says about you. What he says _to_ you. And well… Joey has something in common with my mama, it seems. So while I can’t stand here and say I know exactly what you’re going through, I _can_ stand here and say that I’ve been in a similar way and I know enough about it to know that nobody should have to go through it alone.” She tilted her head at him, offering him a sympathetic smile. “And I’d like to be your friend, if you’d let me.”

Eliza waited for a response, and when one wasn’t immediately forthcoming she ducked her head and returned to gathering her things. “But you don’t have to let me if you don’t want to either. You can always tell me no, it’s alright.” Her purse slung onto her shoulder, she paused when she caught sight of the fluid dripping from his eye, rolling down the round face to his chin. “Aw Bendy…” She wanted to reach out and dry his eyes, maybe even wrap her arms around him when his breath hitched, but that would be far too familiar, too fast. Instead she set down the lunch box and thrust out her hand in offering. “Friends…?”

He hastily wiped his eye clear and offered a shaky smile, gingerly taking her hand into his big white glove. “I’d like that...”


	3. Give the Devil his Due

A bendy doll was a dime at the corner store. Eliza held it in her hands fondly to admire the stitching, the painted on smile, and her thumbs pressing on the plush belly to make it squeak. She smiled, imagining the Bendy at the studio making such a noise; she probably shouldn’t start poking at him out of curiosity though. Boris and Alice were there too, and Eliza waffled in the face of their pie cut eyes staring at her reproachfully for ignoring them.

In the end, she couldn’t bring herself to separate the trio, tucking them into her basket with her groceries. At least Joey would be happy that _someone_ had bought an Alice doll.

“Someone’s birthday party coming up?” the lad at the counter honed in on the flour, sugar, butter and eggs among her purchases, coupled with the triad of dolls.

Eliza offered a sheepish laugh. She could never hope to explain what was going on back at the studio, and even if she did people would just think she was crazy. ‘I’m feeding a demon because his creator won’t take care of him’? They’d call the police to send her off to the priest and then the asylum. “Yes, something like that.”

“Would you like these wrapped?” She had only been planning to smuggle them into the studio in her bag like some sort of contraband, but the idea of presenting Bendy with a nicely wrapped box, topped with a bow and everything, and watching him open it like a kid at Christmas? It made her heart ache a little, both warmed by the image and pained by the fact that he’d likely never been given a gift before. But then, he was only a few months old wasn’t he? He hadn’t existed for long enough for Christmas to come around yet. Maybe if they made it through to December, the good will of the season would inspire others in the studio to be kind to him. Maybe he’d make friends with them by then, and he’d be adored by everyone and he’d be just _buried_ in presents from people showing their appreciation of him...or maybe not, but she liked to dream. Joey said you just had to believe hard enough in your dreams for them to come true, right? Well, her dream was for Bendy to be as adored by the staff as he deserved. And maybe if she believed as hard in that dream as Joey said she should, it would happen for real. That was what the studio was all about, wasn’t it? Making dreams come true!

She realized, belatedly, that the counter clerk was still waiting for an answer. “Oh! Um- Yes, please. With that ribbon, if you don’t mind?”

Did he like toys? Would he even want a toy of himself? She couldn’t imagine Joey was too keen on letting him play down where the workshop was, to see the toys being made and packed for shipment. Was she thinking of him too much like a child, though? The big red bow on top of the box’s striped paper seemed suddenly very childish perched on top of her groceries. Maybe something else would be better. Maybe something that he didn’t already see all day every day. A book maybe?

No, his ink would stain the pages and make them hard to read, if he knew how to read at all. Maybe a puzzle game? Something he could fiddle with to keep his hands busy?

But that might be hard to hide. It could get taken away from him if Joey was in one of his moods.

Tch. _Joey_. Joey wasn’t too keen on letting Bendy go much of anywhere after the music department fiasco, and though he was mostly kept to the contractor Thomas’s office during the daylight hours, he seemed to be able to sneak about when everyone went home for the night. Though she wasn’t sure if Tom was letting him out before he left for the night, or if Bendy was escaping on his own. Either way, she was going to have to put in a lot of work at home before that audition or it was going to look really bad that she’s reserving a practice room every night and hasn’t yet learned the piece.

It was going to be worth it, though. It was already worth it. The little baby steps of progress were already endearing him to her. His smile was becoming less unsettling, his shambling form less frightening, and if all it took for her to get comfortable with him was a night of cards and a nice meal together, then surely it shouldn’t be so difficult for others to see him the same way? After all, he’s their mascot, isn’t he? And true to model or not how could they turn their back on him? On top of being cruel, that’s practically jinxing the studio!

Packing a meal for two every night was going to be a bit of a challenge, and sure to draw whispers if people started noticing her carrying around a veritable picnic basket every day, but if she arranged it carefully she could fit quite a lot into one of those big metal lunchboxes the factory workers carried with them everywhere. Or perhaps she could hide it in her purse. Maybe a mix of the two. At least that neighbor’s cookbook was going to come in handy, though all these recipes for gelatin were never going to get used. She didn’t even _know_ anyone with a refrigerator…

Eliza found herself oddly anticipating her dinner with Bendy through the day, thinking of everything she had hidden away in her bags and box. A properly wrapped gift box with his name on the little tag and everything; she couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he realized it was for him, when he opened it. Would he like the toys? Would he hate them?

At least it was a rehearsal day so her distraction wasn’t quite so detrimental, but Sammy still seemed miffed that half his orchestra was staring at the projection box all the time now – just in case something was up there staring back at them like before. Norman was less easily riled by their inattentiveness than Sammy, but even he was getting a little frustrated with the lack of attention, rapping on the stands with the conductor’s baton and sighing at them all like a disappointed mother. A few people tried to explain – _You weren’t there, Norman, you don’t get it –_ but he wasn’t having their excuses, and Sammy wasn’t backing up their claims.

They’d been laughing the days before, but relaying their ordeal to Norman they wove a horrible picture of Bendy: _a monster; the demon; that abomination._ They acted like he’d set out to terrorize them, like he’d been making threats instead of silly faces. Eliza bit her tongue, but glared hard at the woodwinds, willing their cork pads to all suddenly dry up and fall off and all their reeds to break.

The nerve of some people…

“Good to see you haven’t been eaten,” Casper hummed at her side while she carried her bags and boxes to the musician’s lounge. Ever the gentleman, he took the heavy lunchbox to carry for her, offering a small whistle at the weight. “Speaking of, are you feeding a small army or what?”

“Well I’m feeding a boy that’s only had a single meal in his life so I guess it’s kind of the same thing.” She offered him a wry smirk and set her parcels on the table, arranging them to make room for the checker board to be laid out. “There might be enough for three if you’d like to join us.”

“That’s kind of you, Ellie, but I’m not really keen on the thought of taking tea with the Devil Himself, you know.”

“Yes I know,” she sniffed. “You’d rather take your tea with that feisty little red devil instead.”

“What can I say? Them Irish gals got me some _sorta_ way.” He watched her a while before sighing and raking a hand through his hair, his tone turning serious. “Ellie, I’m worried about you.”

“I know.”

“I’m worried what could happen to a woman alone after hours in a big place like this.”

“I know, Casper.”

“I don’t trust that Wally fella.”

“Wally’s not gonna do nothing to me, Casper.” She placed her hands on his shoulders and kissed his forehead. “Tell you what, if you’re really that worried I’ll let you drive me home after dinner. Alright?”

Casper huffed. “And when’s ‘after dinner’?”

“My reservation for the practice room is until eleven.”

The shorter man grumbled a bit but took her hand, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. “If you’re not waiting for me by eleven oh five, me and Lily are both going to be storming the castle.” His tone softened and an elbow nudged lightly against her side. “I can’t let anything happen to my favorite dance partner now can I?”

“Oh honey I know I’m your second favorite. It’s alright.” She ushered him out the door. “If you’re sure you don’t want to stay for cake, then don’t you have some lines to learn for that audition coming up?”

“Hey now you didn’t mention there’d be _cake_...”

“There’ll be caaaake~”

Still the promises of sweets didn’t sway him just yet. The temptation was clear, but temptation and the devil went together like bees and roses and Casper seemed to know it. Still though, she had seen him waver and that was more than enough for now. Eliza bade him good night, ushering him up the stairs with a laugh and a kiss for his cheek. It’d be nice for him to stay, to talk with Bendy, to maybe start to see in him what she was seeing, but maybe it was just too soon to ask. Too soon to hope for that kind of trust for what she couldn’t deny sounded like a horrible plan on paper: make friends with a demon.

Or whatever Bendy was.

What _was_ he? He wasn’t exactly flesh but he certainly seemed to have bone. Or at least it looked like bones. He came from a machine, he said. How did _that_ work? Did he just pour out of a spigot like a liquid, did he roll out on a conveyor belt like a loaf of bread?

How did the Ink Machine work? What did it _do, exactly_ ? There was certainly an element of mad science to the whole affair, but science followed some modicum of logic, didn’t it? She couldn’t fathom a logical explanation for the thing, what she’d seen of it, and what it had produced thus far. Was Bendy some sort of fae creature, perhaps, made corporeal by the ink? Hell, that would make more sense to her than him being a _demon_. He was far too sweet for the likes of Lucifer’s armies, and fae were known to be mischievous just like him.

But that still raised a whole other host of questions, and not one of them had anything to do with science.

Maybe she was thinking about this all too hard. If the people who had made him hadn’t figured out how they did it, well a simple country bumpkin like her probably wasn’t going to crack the code.

She kept her fingers moving while she mulled, absently picking notes. It didn’t take as long for Bendy to come peeking around the door this time, lured by the strumming of mandolin strings in the otherwise quiet studio. “There you are,” she hummed between chords, keeping her attention off the door until he had managed his way fully inside. “It’s nice to see you again, Bendy.”

“It’s … nice to see you too,” he rasped softly, fidgeting with his glove. He took a shaky step towards the table, uncertain still but less so than their first encounter, and gingerly folded himself up in the too-small chair across from her.

She really needed to find him a bigger seat. A stool maybe? “Hang on a tick.”

A quick rummaging of the music department produced exactly one stool from the recording booth and Eliza plopped it down next to the table, giving it a light dusting before presenting it in invitation. “See if this works better. You’ve got those long grasshopper legs.”

“Do I?” He shifted up onto the stool gingerly, finding it a bit precarious to balance without a sturdy back and his heavy, oversized head. He still stooped forward and had to hunch a little to reach the table but at least now his legs wouldn’t be up in his chest. Eliza wasn’t sure it was _better_ exactly but Bendy seemed loathe to complain, examining those long, gangly legs of his as though it were his first time seeing them.

“Nothing wrong with being a long legged sort,” she reassured with a chuckle, settling in across from him and folding open the metal lunchbox. “It just means you can reach the tall shelves.”

Bendy seemed to take interest in the wrapped box at the edge of the table, his curiosity apparent as one of those shiny black eyes peeked through the veil over his face, but Eliza only grinned and set about peeling a couple of oranges. She laid the fruit out with some only-slightly-squashed dinner rolls and a bit of cheese. “Do you know how to play checkers? I thought that starting with a game might be nice tonight.”

He offered a distracted nod. “I know how to play.”

Eliza gestured to the board. “Black or red?”

“Red, please.” He glanced down finally as the board was turned for him, picking up one of the red chips to inspect it. “It’s … nice to see bright colors sometimes. I know people around the studio wear them, but with the ink everywhere it all gets washed out and covered up. Almost everything around here ends up black and grey.”

“You’d be quite handsome with a splash of red,” Eliza considered, hand on her chin. “Maybe on your bow.”

“A red bow…?” Eliza almost laughed at how his attention drifted back to the box, to the red ribbon wrapped around it. Was it part of his nature as a cartoon character to be so curious? Or was it more in line with the nature of being a child?

Perhaps a combination of the two. Eliza moved her piece across the board to get his attention again, but it did little. “What’s in the box?”

“What box?” Eliza feigned disinterest, plucking another orange from the lunch pail to peel.

“That box.” His fingers drummed restlessly at the edge of the table and he hunkered down to peer at it on level. “That one there.”

“What one where?” She allowed his insistent pointing to direct her attention to the parcel. “Oh that box?”

“Yes that box. What’s in that box?”

“Well it looks like it’s probably a gift for someone.”

Black eyes cut her way, round and shining with eager curiosity. “For who?”

“Someone, I suppose.”

“Elizaaaaa...” Bendy’s front half melted a bit onto the table and his back half went sliding off the stool in dismay. “Who’s it for?”

She couldn’t help but chuckle, merely setting the second peeled orange directly in front of the pouting demon. “You’ll see.”

Neither game nor food held as much sway as that box sitting quietly at the edge of the table. No matter how Eliza pretended not to notice it, refused to acknowledge it, his attention couldn’t be diverted away. Not with fruit, not with games. His attention was transfixed on the colored paper and its red ribbon sitting so innocuously but so temptingly nearby. When he absently moved his checker piece right off the table, Eliza heaved a dramatic, put upon sigh.

A gloved hand reached to prod at the box, intercepted by Eliza snagging the wrist of his glove and leading it back to him. “Ah-ah-ah,” she chided, wagging a finger. “Dinner first.” They could always come back to the game afterwards, and with how he seemed to be nearly bubbling with curiosity it seemed a little cruel to drag it out forever.

“Is it for Casper?” He made another effort to reach it when Eliza stood to put away the game, his efforts thwarted by the casual whisking away of the box to rearrange the stack of her belongings.

“It’s not for Casper.” Eliza set about unpacking their meal, gently redirecting the curious fingers trying to sneak past her by planting a deviled egg in his palm.

Bendy blinked at it and the pun earned a snicker before he tossed it into his mouth. “Is it for Sammy?”

“Not for Sammy.” Deviled eggs, potato salad, cold cut sandwiches, cabbage slaw, whole tomatoes she sliced into fat rings with salt, dates stuffed with peanut butter, a thermos full of lemonade for two – she felt rather pleased with the spread. A proper summer picnic, just right for June.

“For Jack? For Norman? For Thomas? For Wally?”

“You’re just going to name everyone in the studio, aren’t you?” Eliza shook her head, amused. “How do you even _know_ all these people?”

“I have really good ears – I hear a lot of what goes on in the studio.”

“You don’t even have ears though.” Eliza chuckled at Bendy’s sheepish shrug. “Dinner first. Then we’ll address the issue of the box.”

“For Allison? For Lily? For Karen? For-”

“Not for any of those either!” Without thinking, Eliza reached out and planted her hand between his horns. It had the intended effect of quieting his guessing game, but his attention had hyperfocused on the hand on his head, eyes almost crossed to stare up at the arm within his peripheral view. Belatedly, she realized that perhaps this was too familiar of a touch, too quickly. Eliza’s hand retreated, though the pie-cut gaze followed it as she moved to sit back down. She cleared her throat. “You must be hungry after being in Mister Connor’s office all day.”

Bendy had yet to re-situate himself after his initial slide from the stool, peering at Eliza with his eyes level with the tabletop. His clawed hand reached up between his horns, touching the spot where her hand had been, seeming pensive. He inched his way around the side of the table and Eliza couldn’t help the faint quirk of her lips at the thought of how half-hidden by the table he looked a little bit like a pair of sharks coming for her.

She tried not to flinch when he sidled up next to her. “Eliza...”

“I’m sorry about that, Bendy, I didn’t mean to spook you like that-”

“Could you...” he cut off her apology, gloved hand tentatively reaching for her wrist. “Could you do it again…?”

Surprised, she tilted her head to get a better view of his face, at the shy avoidance of his eyes and the lack of dripping veil that usually came when he was distressed. Her hand rested gingerly between his horns, laying there flat and still for a moment before she moved it side to side along the curve of his head. He was surprisingly dry for as damp and shiny as he usually seemed, almost fuzzy to the touch. Her thumb traced the little widows peak of his brow, smoothing out its edges where white met black. “Like this…?”

“Yeah...” He leaned a little more heavily into her hand, invisible eyelids drooping contentedly over black eyes. “That’s nice...”

_Poor thing_. Given how people reacted to him, Eliza wasn’t surprised that he would be a bit touch-starved. Joey didn’t seem the sort of man to give him a pat on the head or a hug or dry his face when he was crying. Joey didn’t seem the sort to tuck him in to bed or read to him or give him toys to play with…

Tch. Leave it to a man like Joey Drew to create life and refuse to take any responsibility for it. _Typical_.

Eliza let her hand slide away from the demon’s head, and tapped her finger between his eyes where a nose might have been. “Glad to see _something_ can distract you from that box.”

Bendy’s eyes lit up immediately at the mention of the source of curiosity, his grin widening as gleeful mischief took root, and he made an attempt to skirt around Eliza and dash for it. She was closer, but his long arms managed to outpace her, scooping the parcel off the top of her belongings and holding it out of reach with a delighted little victory laugh.

“Bendy,” Eliza warned, trying to sound stern, her hands on her hips. “Give it here, you little devil.”

“Who’s it _to_ , Eliza?” He giggled, leaning further away whenever she made her pitiful attempts to reach it. Eliza wasn’t a small woman but the lanky-limbed demon had a good foot and then some of height on her. “Are you someone’s secret admirer?” His tone was teasing, waggling the package at her mockingly over his head, well out of reach.

“I think by now it’s no secret that I admire them.” She made a pitiful little jump, and despite being nowhere close to her goal Bendy danced out of reach. She was surprised to see him move that quickly after seeing his usual slow amble about – maybe he just needed the motivation to get his feet under him.

“I bet it’s got a saccharine letter inside about your feelings huh?” Bendy giggled harder at the way Eliza scoffed, delighting in this impromptu game of Keep Away as he scuttled around the table away from the woman chasing after him. “Dear Brandon, every day I smell your musky cologne and think of us together-”

“Musky is not exactly my preference,” she laughed, almost managing to grab hold of his arm. “You’re way off the mark.”

“Dear Craig, the ever-present fumes of your cigars make my heart flutter-”

“Ugh. No. Not even remotely.”

“Dear Casper, I love you so much-”

“I already told you it wasn’t for Casper.” Eliza gave up chasing him and settled for standing with her hands on her hips, shaking her head at his antics.

Bendy laughed, putting a few more steps between them before he pulled the box down to peek at the tag. “If it’s not for Casper then who...” His mischievous smile faltered in surprise, black eyes vanishing and reappearing in a confused blink. “It’s for… me…?”

“I do believe that’s what it says on the label, now doesn’t it?” She finally caught hold of his arm and gave a gentle tug, leading him back to sit on his stool. Once situated, she plopped down in the seat across from him, elbows on the table, fingers laced together under her chin. “I guess there’s no point to make you keep waiting. Do you want to open it?”

“Y-… yeah…” He tugged at the ribbon gently, unraveling the bow and setting it aside. Eliza waited anxiously while he peeled back the layer of colorful paper and revealed the plain white box. It sat so small in his hands as he tugged off the lid and peeked inside. “Oh!” He laughed softly, lifting the plush doll from its confines. “It’s me!” He reached in for the others, holding the trio in his hands. “And Boris! And _Alice_! It’s all of us!”

Bendy squashed the triad of dolls to his chest and gave a delighted laugh at the wheezy squeak they all made in unison. “Are they really… _mine_? Can I keep them?”

“Of course you can keep them - that’s why they’re a present.”

Black eyes glimmered with tears, but he brushed them away with an arm before they could fall. “Thank you...”

“Of course, Bendy.” Part of Eliza chided her for being so satisfied; she could have done more, couldn’t she? She could have done something more useful, something more constructive to help – toys were all well and good but they didn’t keep him from being locked up in the basement on a daily basis.

But the toys made him happy, and that was certainly something he needed. He seemed so pleased with his new little friends, someone to help him feel less lonely at night when Eliza went home, or during the day when he was made to hide away in the offices where no one could see him.

And Joey was… well, he was a man that didn’t seem to like questions. Especially questions about himself. She couldn’t very well march up to him and demand better conditions for Bendy – if he fired her, there went all hope she had of helping him at all. She couldn’t do anything to help if she wasn’t _here,_ no one outside would believe her and certainly not sympathize. No, she had to tread carefully. She had to be smart about this. As much as it pained her to see him treated so poorly, she couldn’t rush anything – Joey had to be brought around to seeing Bendy’s value on his own; and bonus if he thought it was his idea. He seemed like the kind of man to love when he thought it was his idea.

Eliza reached for a deviled egg and popped it into her mouth. “I don’t know about you, but all this running around has made me pretty hungry.”

Dinner was rather uneventful by comparison to its lead in. Bendy sat his toys alongside him at the table so they could pretend to share his lemonade while he ate heaping spoonfuls of potato salad and cabbage slaw. Boris was a little more top heavy than the other two toys and tipped over, sending the Bendy doll sprawling. Bendy tsked softly, righting them again. “Oh Boris. He’s always doing that whenever there’s food around.”

Eliza laughed softly, setting a plate in front of Bendy and one in front of the toys for good measure. “Well he doesn’t need to fight, there’s plenty of cake for everyone to have a slice including him.”

Casper’s head poked into the lounge well after Eliza had lost track of the time. The rhythmic ticking of the dancing clock had lost meaning hours ago between food and quiet laughter. He found Eliza lazily strumming her mandolin, the checkers board forgotten mid-game on the table, and Bendy half asleep across from her with his head pillowed on his arms, the trio of toys tucked into the crook of his elbow and drawn in close to his cheek.

Casper cleared his throat and they both jumped. Once the shock wore off and her fluttering heart settled, Eliza wondered if he’d seen the way Bendy had looked before when he was relaxed, the way his face was soft and sweet and _almost_ on model, or if all he saw was the way the demon flinched back from the unexpected voice and the veil of ink that covered his face in his fright. “Is it eleven already?” Eliza stood, reaching to place a soothing hand between Bendy’s horns before gathering up her things.

“It’s a fair bit past it,” Casper replied softly, not daring to break the stillness of the studio but his tone on the verge of chiding for making him worry about her. “We expected you twenty minutes ago. Lily’s waiting in the car.”

“I’m sorry, Casper. I must have dozed off a bit.” She handed off the metal lunch pail to him and planted a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll be right up. Just let me get my bag.”

He seemed reluctant to go without her, but she ushered him up the stairs and out of sight before looking back to Bendy. He looked more embarrassed than frightened, at least, clutching his new possessions in his arms and watching Eliza scurry around to tidy up. “I wish you could stay here with me, instead of going home.”

Eliza offered him a wane smile. “And I wish I could take you home with me instead of leaving you here every night – but I don’t know yet how Joey would react to that.”

“Probably not good,” Bendy admitted, head hunkering down into his shoulders. Eliza touched gently between his horns, stroking soothingly back and forth, ignoring the ink clinging to her fingers. Bit by bit he relaxed under the hand petting him, and Eliza was a little amazed to see and feel his ink becoming less tacky to the touch as he calmed again.

“I’ll see you in the morning, okay?” She gave his nose a little touch. “I promise.”

He grinned faintly, sadly. “Okay.” Bendy’s gaze stayed on her back as she started up the stairs. “G’night… Ellie…”

She paused, peeking back through the door at him and smiled fondly. “Good night, Ben.”

Eliza found Casper at the top of the stairwell waiting, leaning back on the wall with his ankles crossed and trying not to look impatient or worried. He was failing, of course, and Eliza felt the faintest pang of guilt for having made him come down to fetch her. She slid her hand in his and gave it a little squeeze, apologetic. “Thanks for taking me home, Casper.”

“I couldn’t leave my best gal to walk these streets alone at this hour,” he replied, trying to sound nonchalant as he allowed Eliza to pull him along to the studio doors.

“I know I’m your second best gal,” she teased, hoping to lighten his mood, but instead he pulled her arm gently to slow her down.

“Ellie, I’m not lying when I say I’m worried about you, you know. If Joey’s keeping him locked up all the time, don’t you think there’s a reason for that? Don’t you think he’s dangerous? What would I even do if I’d come down there and you’d been dead or something worse?”

“Worse like what?”

“I don’t know, catatonic cuz your soul got sucked out or something; look: don’t split hairs-” He heaved a breath he’d been holding, two parts frustration and one part relief. “When you didn’t show up like you said you would I was _worried_ -!”

“I know. I know, and I’m sorry. But he’s not dangerous, Casper, no more so than the average person, or scared animal. Joey just puts him away because he looks strange, he isn’t hurting anyone. He’s _never_ hurt anyone. He doesn’t _like_ hurting people - Bendy’s a cartoon protagonist, his whole goal in life is to make people happy.”

“Yeah, _Bendy_ is a _cartoon_ . _Bendy_ is a product of pen and paper, dozens and dozens of little pictures put together. That’s not a cartoon, and I don’t know what it is and neither do you - none of us do!” Casper set the lunch pail down to take both her hands, giving them another squeeze. “I’m worried what he might do to you.”

“You know what the easy way to allay that worry would be?”

Her tone was teasing, and his thin pressed lips didn’t seem to appreciate the levity in the moment. “What?”

“Stay for cake next time.”

He sighed. “Using cake as a weapon against me, no wonder you’re trying to buddy up to a cartoon character.” Casper shook his head, fetching up the pail to continue towards the door. “I don’t think I trust seeing you with pies in your hands anymore.”

“You’re missing out, I make a damn good lemon meringue.”

The studio door opened to allow them entry into the night air, the parking lot empty but for Casper’s car and a small figure in a dress halfway between the vehicle and the door. Lily stopped her hurried stride when they came out, and Eliza had a moment where she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to laugh at the sight of the crowbar the petite redhead was wielding or if she should resign herself to feeling guilty for making the pair worry so.

Lily slumped a bit, the tip of the crowbar hitting the ground with a dull _clink_ of iron on pavement. “I got myself all worked up to come rescue the both of you and here you finally come. Is everything okay? Do I still need to hit someone?”

“Everything’s fine, I promise,” Eliza soothed, putting a hand on Lily’s back to lead her back to the car. “No one needs their head stomped today but I’ll keep you updated.” Crowbar securely returned to the boot of the car, they piled in together, Lily up front with Casper, Eliza leaning against the window in the back to let the night air wash over her. “You know,” she offered up after a long silence, hoping to ease the tension in the air, “he really is sweet if you talk to him…”

“The devil takes all sorts of forms to tempt us,” Lily mumbled. “Usually people think of him as a beautiful man, but apparently you respond to different bait.”

“I’ve already got a beautiful man in my life,” she teased, sliding her hands through Casper’s hair from behind to ruffle it up. He made a protesting noise, swatting at her and hurrying to slick it back down. “And he hasn’t dragged me to Hell yet.”

“You’re playing with fire, Eliza.”

“I think I’m playing with ink, but it’s honestly hard to tell.”

“Ellie…” Lily’s tone was quietly pleading, much like Casper’s had been earlier, but whatever she was going to say seemed to escape her, pushed out with her heavy sigh. “We just don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

Eliza sat back, mulling over their concerns, considering how to respond. The silence stretched for two more blocks before she finally broke it, her tone terse, “Personally, I’d be more worried about Joey than about anything Bendy might ever do.”


	4. Come Hell or High Water

“I will never understand the layout of this place. The reception desk is in the sub basement, there’s pipes everywhere, only the animators are on the first floor, factories and amusement park rides and – it just doesn’t make any sense!”

Eliza watched the buttons of the elevator light up calmly as they descended, nonplussed by the protests of its passengers. She didn’t disagree with the assessment, but it did little good to complain; besides, people that complained didn’t keep their jobs very long, and with the Depression of the last handful of years, work was something most people couldn’t afford to lose. It said something about the status of a woman who had the luxury to complain so openly in such mixed company: she was probably married, her husband probably had a comfortable job to already provide for them, they probably had no children. This job for her was clearly not about surviving the way it was for many of the others that worked here, many who were giving sidelong glances towards the source of the voice. Eliza kept her gaze on the buttons. Deniability was important, and she didn't want to get tangled up in the office politics of a single, mouthy employee that doesn't know how to be discreet. If she didn't see who was talking, she couldn't identify them later.

They piled out of the elevator with their time cards and arranged themselves in queue for the receptionist, some of the men gnawing impatiently on unlit cigars, some of the women gaggled together for gossiping to pass the time. A boy, he couldn’t be more than ten, was clinging to his time card while his mother cleaned grease and ink off of his face.  _ He must work down in the toy department _ , she reasoned, shuffling along as the line moved up. It wasn’t unusual to see children working in factories, and with all the construction going on that that Thomas Connor fellow was leading, she supposed there was more than one set of tiny hands on Joey Drew’s staff for reaching into the narrow inner mechanisms of the big machines. It was  _ becoming _ more unusual to see, but there were always work arounds and loopholes for such things, like mothers taking their children to work with them. Eliza didn't expect that Joey would outright break the law but like most company owners making ends meet, he'd certainly probably exploit all the loopholes he could find. If he needed tiny hands, he’d hire mothers, encourage them to bring their children - extra pay for your family, extra bread on your table. It was no doubt too tempting an offer to pass up for many. 

“I heard they’re building boats! Ferries for getting around the flooded tunnels!”

“Gracious. Whatever for? Can't they drain them?”

“I think at this point they're just calling them part of the amusement park. It's a little futuristic, isn't it, though? A multi-level underground amusement park. It's like something you'd hear about at the World’s Fair!” 

“Joey's so clever! People will come from all over to see that!” 

“What a brilliant man he is!” 

If there was one thing to say about Joey Drew, the man didn't seem to acknowledge setbacks. One might think a whole level filled by a river, deep enough that they needed boats to traverse it, might pause construction for a few days. Or months. Or years. Joey didn't seem to agree - just throw some boats in and make it part of the fun! There was something to be said for that, she supposed. He didn't let anything get him down. Or… take much responsibility for things unless they were going right. Or take much responsibility at all. Credit? Sure absolutely! When things were going right it's all thanks to his brilliant plans and a positive attitude and faith in his abilities. When things went wrong it was all thanks to the incompetence of the employees and someone was doubting him and if they didn't believe hard enough his dreams wouldn't come true. His dreams.  _ His dreams _ .

When things like Bendy happened, he tried to pretend it didn't exist. It never happened. He didn't want to see it, he didn't want anyone else to see it, to see that he could be wrong via this testament to his personal failings, his ego, his impatience, all the things he blamed others for instead of himself. 

Eliza gave herself a shake to derail that train of thought. A month ago she would have been agreeing with the girls behind her. They were going places! All of them! It was going to be amazing what they created together once the world saw all their hard work come to fruition! But now… now she had seen behind the curtain, seen the wizard as he was, or at least seen some of the cruelties he was capable of. This was his  _ creation _ , his  _ child _ . But then a man of the era wasn't  _ expected _ to care for his children that way, and the Ink Machine didn't make much of a mother. He boasted about  _ his creations _ while others labored to bring them to life - Thomas, Sammy,  _ Bertrum _ \- and got little acknowledgment for their work. It was their  _ job _ to bring them to life, after all, but oh  _ Joey _ had been the one to  _ initiate _ the whole process ergo everything cycled back to credit him. Maybe if Joey were married he'd have taken more care with what he was doing, shown more concern for the results? 

Probably not… 

Eliza handed off her time card at the reception desk, waiting while numbers were recorded and signing off in the payroll book. She wondered when she had turned so bitter to what had previously seemed such a benevolent employer. Sure the place was… weird and somewhat hazardous at times but it was a  _ great opportunity _ with  _ great things _ to come, an honor just to be there, to be part of something that would change the world and their contributions would be part of the magic long after they were all gone. It had been so blindingly glimmering at first, and she wondered when the lights had shifted for her to be able to see the darker sides of their magical wonderland they were trying to create. 

She had believed in the Wizard. Now she was Dorothy, knowing too much to wear her green glasses and continue to be fooled, but not having enough sense to up and  _ leave _ the emerald city.

Besides, how could she leave her Cowardly Lion behind? 

The crowd waiting to go back up was bigger than the one that stepped off the lift with her, and when the elevator opened they shouldered against each other and pushed their way in, fighting for their spot in the limited space. Eliza hung back, watching them crowd one another, no one willing to complain as they crammed together, but there were too many for the door to close. 

Reluctantly a handful stepped back out to wait for the next round going up, milling about restlessly while the cage ascended. Eliza counted herself lucky when she heard the telltale squeak and grind of the pulleys fighting a losing battle, the sputtering of the motors that echoed down the deep shaft as the elevator came to a shuddering, jarring halt. 

“Whelp.” It was a small thing to say but somehow succinct as an observation. Eliza recognized Richard, one of the writers from upstairs, as he turned to the group of stragglers with a grin. “It appears the elevator is out of order.”

“It appears so.” A mousey gal dressed in black hovered next to him, her beret cocked at a jaunty angle. Eliza had never met her personally but she'd heard enough gossip to guess that was Millicent, the gal Richard was sweet on. 

Rumor had it that some of Alice's more lovey dovey scenes were inspired by them. Eliza suspected Casper and Lily, personally, given who she knew upstairs - though Lily was certainly lacking the saintly temperament becoming of an angel. She couldn't imagine sweet gentle Alice with a crowbar ready to brawl in a dark parking lot.

…she should suggest it to Casper though. That'd be hilarious as an episode. Alice Angel the gun moll. 

“Well now what?” 

“Looks like we’re taking the stairs,” Richard declared cheerily, swinging open the stairwell door and standing aside with a flourishing bow. “After you, ladies.” Were all the writers so dramatic? She’d have to ask Casper, but based on her sample size so far the answer was a resounding ‘yes’. 

Well that was certainly one other thing to say for Joey: he appreciated big personalities. Probably a byproduct of making cartoons that he employed so many damn  _ characters _ . 

Nobody seemed too pleased with the trek ahead of them, but they dutifully trudged up the stairs as a small herd. Some of the gals heading to the higher levels paused to remove their heels before continuing on forward, clutching shoes in one hand and paperwork in the other. 

“I hate that rickety elevator,” someone complained behind Eliza in the procession, “why do we even have it if it’s just going to break down all the time?” 

“Same reason we have ink pipes that break all the time,” a man grumbled. “All the engineers that might be useful for fixing this shit are downstairs in the amusement park or preoccupied with Joey’s weird Ink Machine so everything else just kinda falls apart.” 

“Sure wish I could play around in an amusement park all day for my nickels.” 

“Oh no you don’t. A fella got his leg caught between some of those haunted house carts just last week. It’s dangerous work for a pretty skirt like you, you’d ruin your nails.” 

“Shuddup, George,” Eliza grumbled, falling back in the group to give the man a whack on the arm. “You talk like that about your mama? Shameful.”

“Yeah, Milly, you don’t wanna have hands like these!” Richard grabbed George’s wrist cuff and held the man’s hand out for display, snickering. “Navigating all those dangerous file folders just waiting for the chance to leap out and cut you up! Just look at those cuticles! What hard labor this fella gets up to!” 

George snatched his wrist away and straightened his cuffs primly. “Jealousy doesn’t become you, Richie.” 

Scattered laughter echoed through the narrow stairwell to George’s discontent. Soon they grew quiet again, the silence only broken by the occasional whisper and the creaking of the stairs underfoot. It was sort of an unspoken rule that one did not complain about their work too loudly: Joey was a particular man, and he talked at length about how much he needed people  _ really dedicated _ to the success of the studio. Doubters and dissidents didn’t keep their paychecks for too long, and no paycheck meant no bread on the table, and the likelihood of other prospects were slim for many of the kind of folk that worked there. Some people bought into his grandiose promises and lofty dreams of the future more than others, but everyone had quietly agreed to play along with the man’s quirky rituals and things. Whatever he thought he needed to do to make sure the power stayed on, even if that was strange altars with offerings to ‘the gods’. 

The more doors they passed the slower their climb became, legs starting to ache after the fourth - or fifth? Surely it wasn’t still the third - story worth of stairs. Their climb became slower yet when the head of the procession stopped, leading everyone behind him to stumble and bump into the person ahead of them and prompting voices ranging from annoyed to worried. “What’s the big idea?!”

“What’s the matter with you?” 

“Why did we stop?” 

“What’s going on?”

“ _ Listen _ .” The silence immediately descended like a thick blanket, ears straining to hear what was being drawn to their attention.

Overhead, a pipe rumbled. They rattled in their brackets, faintly at first, but as the rumble grew louder they started to creak, to groan. There was a snap of a bolt giving way, the hiss of a fresh stream of ink escaping to splatter in the stairwell. 

“Back. Go back. Get down to the door.” Richard grabbed Milly by the arm, scurrying back the way the group had come. Others turned to follow suit, hurrying to find the most recent door they’d passed. 

“It’s not that big a deal,” George scoffed when most of the group squeezed past him. “So we sprung a leak, happens all the time around here.” He shook off Eliza’s hand attempting to lead him back with the rest of the group, and she hovered, uncertain, when he continued tromping forward towards the hissing stream, ignoring the ominous rumbling of the pipes above them. “I ain’t afraid of getting a little dirty around here.” 

“Locked!” Eliza could hear Richard yelling below, rattling the knob and pounding on the door for attention. “Keep going until you find one that’s open! Get out of the stairwell!” 

“You’re a bunch of delicate flowers,” George called down mockingly as Eliza turned and hurried back down to catch up with the rest of the group. 

The stairs creaked below them, the pipes creaked above. Another hiss heralded a fresh stream of ink escaping, the noisy ricochet of bolts and screws flying free from their moorings echoing to chase them down the stairs. Richard slammed his shoulder against the door, trying one more time to get it open before following after the others that had fled further down. If they could just make it back to the floor they had entered from they’d be fine- 

The alarmed shout from George was almost lost in the thunderous crack and the shriek of splitting metal, the growing rumble as the rivulets of black ink that had followed them down the stairs quickly became a rushing tide of darkness, swallowing the light from up ahead in a quickly encroaching veil of black. It bore down on them like a train in a tunnel, the deafening roar of the sudden onslaught heralding in their imminent demise.

Eliza could do little more than grab onto the banister and scream as it crashed into her, sweeping her footing off the narrow stairs, her handhold quickly becoming uselessly slick and slippery with ink. The banister squealed as her hands slid across it, forcing her downward, the tips of her toes scrambling to find her footing and steady herself from being thrown further. It billowed around her hips, her chest, her shoulders, foaming as it tumbled down the stairs and around the shrieking figures of people desperately trying to flee its path, crashing off the walls and folding over itself as it rapidly gathered at the bottom of the stairs with nowhere to go but up and began to devour them. 

Soon it had splashed itself into her eyes, her mouth, blocking the panicked, pleading shouts of her coworkers as it filled the stairwell, gradually swallowing them all whole. She managed to get her footing under her, pushing her way forward in search of the surface, in search of air.

Something big and heavy crashed into her from the void, frantic hands grabbing at her hair and clothes in an attempt to anchor himself. Her hands lost their tenuous hold on the banister, and in the darkness of the rushing tide she could only claw about blindly for purchase, not knowing which way was up, not knowing how far she’d been pushed. The grip on her fell away, George tumbling further into the black current without her. Her chest burned desperately for air, fists pounding on the walls whenever they made contact. There was no up, there was no escape- 

It filled her mouth when her lungs finally gave up, bitter and metallic like blood, thick and congealing. She could feel it filling her throat, her chest, thick and viscous, like it was going to squeeze the life out of her. She felt so heavy, so tired. Her fingers scraped weakly at the wall as they fell away, fell into submission to the darkness surrounding her, forcing its way inside of her through her mouth, her nose, her  _ skin _ .

Why did it taste like blood-

Was that scream hers? 

There were voices in the darkness, faint and sad and frightened, calling for help… 

There was no end to the darkness. It stretched on forever, leaving her adrift in a void with only the voices of the damned begging for mercy- 

Her lungs burned as she took a wheezing, bubbling gasp of air, coughing up thick globs of ink. Hands on her shoulders pushed her to her knees from her back, and she leaned against a shaky arm braced on the floor, just struggling to get air into her lungs. Her other hand reached for the one touching her shoulder, the pointed tips digging into her skin through her ruined blouse, both their hands trembling. She didn’t dare look back at him, only patting his hand in a pitiful attempt at reassurance. Eliza leaned forward until her head rested on the floor against her forearm, focused on her breath until her racing heart had calmed, until her aching lungs began to work steadily again. He didn’t speak, so neither did she, not wanting to make things worse by drawing attention to him being there when he should have been hidden away in Mister Connor’s office still. The clawed hand left her shoulder, brushing briefly over ink soaked hair piled heavily around her shoulders and in her face. 

When she managed to force her eyes open she was alone, kneeling in a puddle near an open door like she’d been swept ashore by the tide. Maybe she had been, with the way the ink had come tearing down the stairs like a river rapid. She coughed again, thick clumps of gelatinous ink splattering on the ground when it escaped from her lungs. A black mass rested near her, unmoving, roughly the shape of a person. “Bendy…?” Had he fainted? Had he fallen? 

She dragged herself over, blurry eyes barely able to make out the shape of an arm, a five fingered hand. Oh God… that wasn't Bendy. The figure was too short, too stocky… 

Phone. She needs a phone there had to be a phone on this level right? A call button? An emergency buzzer? A  _ fire alarm _ ? Something!  What department was she even in? Dizzy and weak, Eliza staggered to her feet, the ink pulling at her soaked clothes and legs with every step she trudged through it in search of the phone. She could feel her clothes and her hair hardening as the ink started to dry, pulling at her skin. She scrubbed hastily at her face with a ruined sleeve. It didn’t do much to help her watery vision but it alleviated the itch. 

A hallway was lined with empty offices, and through the windows she could see the desks, abandoned mid-day for lunch judging by the paperwork laying so innocuously across the surface. Paperwork that quickly got ruined from her dripping as she scrambled for the phone resting there. She tapped frantically at the receiver buttons until a voice picked up on the other line. “Operator? Peggy? Peggy I need the infirmary you gotta put me through post-haste it’s an emergency-” 

There was an understandable bit of shock from the staff returning from lunch to find her there hunched over a desk and sobbing, coated head to toe in thick black ink. Their floors were now hosting a shallow pool from the flood that had spilled in through the open door to the stairwell, and poor George lying there in the middle of it. 

The cleanup went around her in a blurr, vision blurry from ink and tears alike in her aching eyes, ears ringing loud enough to block out the concerned voices of men scurrying about to stop the flow from the pipes and attempt to do  _ something _ for the group caught in the torrent. Towels were provided by the nurses but did little, just clutched around her shoulders like a prayer shawl while she was directed to a cot. Eliza found herself staring down into a paper cup full of black liquid, and she didn’t dare consider how much time had passed between the shaky call for help and now. Was Norman looking for her? He was usually pretty good about keeping tabs on the band when they went missing. It was easy to get turned around in this labyrinth of a studio and occasionally people got lost or distracted and had to be returned to their department. Did he know she was here? Was she going to get fired for missing rehearsal because of this? That would just be a kick in the head, wouldn’t it? Not that she would much mind not having to come back after today, but someone still needed to look after Bendy, and she couldn’t pay rent with ‘sorry, I almost died’. 

It took her another handful of seconds to realize she was staring at coffee and not more of the thick, viscous globs of ink that still stuck to her skin and clothes. This whole outfit would have to be thrown away, there was no saving it. It would never feel right again. Ink aside, it would always remind her of George’s grasping hands being swept past her, of him lying there still on the floor, of not being able to help him. Why hadn’t he listened to Richard? Was his pride really so stubborn? He didn’t have to pay that sort of toll for his pride… 

“I used to wonder why we  _ had _ a private infirmary,” Richard mumbled on a cot next to hers, gently clutching Milly’s shaking hand. The voice managed to pull Eliza out of her thoughts enough to notice her hands were shaking too, readjusting her grip on the cup to try to make them more steady. The pair beside her seemed about as bad off as Eliza felt, Richard’s leg splinted and Milly’s head wrapped with a bag of ice pressed against her swollen cheek. Someone had made an attempt to clean Milly’s face off to check for other cuts, resulting in swirling patterns of half-dissolved ink on her cheeks and nose and forehead. Richard sighed, tucking the woman’s head under his chin to hold her closer. “Now I’m just sorta glad we have it, regardless of reasons why.” 

Eliza threw back the cup of bitter coffee gone cold, the metallic taste of oversteeped brew too reminiscent of the taste of ink to offer any of the comfort it was supposed to bring. “I guess.” 

Glancing over the row of cots, she tried to take stock of who was there with them. There were eleven of them on the stairs, but she only counted nine heads including her own, only a couple of them cleaned up enough to be distinguishable. She knew Richard’s voice, and she knew that was Milly he was hanging onto, and that looked like William and that one’s wearing heels so that must be Betty, and that one could be Joan… the rest were probably men, but none that she knew. Probably. 

“What happened to you all? How did you get out?” 

“The next batch of unlucky bastards heading upstairs opened the door, swept us out into the reception area. We might not be getting paid this week if the flood got Minerva’s books…” 

Eliza made another headcount just to be sure she hadn’t missed someone, just to be sure they weren’t lurking in the corners or lying just out of sight. One, two, three, four, five… she took a shaky breath. “Where’s Abigail? Did she go home already?”

Richard made a quiet noise in his throat and held Milly closer under his arm, shushing the sudden sob that bubbled up from her. 

Eliza supposed she didn’t need more detail than that, finding some sort of comfort in the bland white bottom of her empty paper cup. More coffee didn’t exactly sound appealing, she needed something that wasn’t black… 

“Holy shit, Ellie-” She had almost dozed off where she sat staring into the white paper like she might divine the secrets of the universe, but the harried voice startled her out of her exhausted daze, fumbling the empty cup. Her hands missed, sending it rolling across the floor and under an oncoming shoe. Casper paid it no mind as he rushed in and grabbed onto her, pulling her head to his chest as though to shelter her - a feat only capable of being performed by virtue of her sitting down. “God, are you okay? Lily said Norman was looking for you and Sammy got a call that you were down here and he told Norman and Lily heard them so she came up and got me and I thought you’d just sprained your ankle or something at first but people started to chatter and the ambulance came and made us stay clear of the elevator while they took George out and- Jesus Christ are you alright?” 

Eliza nodded against his chest, not lifting her head. Physically, she was okay. Itchy from the ink, stained, a little bruised, but nothing that she and her pride wouldn’t recover from. Physically, she was fine, so she nodded to alleviate Casper’s worries. He was quiet for a while longer, simply holding her against him while she sat in silence with her face hidden against his chest. He’d be covered in ink smears when she pulled back. Distantly, she felt a little bad for the inevitable loss of his shirt. His hands tried to brush back her hair to soothe her, but the ink had slicked it down into a solid mass against her face and shoulders. He cringed sympathetically at the sight and reached to take her hand. “C’mon, Ellie. Let’s get you home… I’ll drive you.” 

“Is the elevator still broken…?” 

“No. No they’ve got it working now, it’s alright…” 

Her legs still felt a bit jelly like when she allowed Casper to usher her into the elevator. A hand tried to wipe her eyes out of habit, the result doing little to ease the ache or improve her vision, speckled with ink and runny with tears as it was. Casper hovered near her like a guard dog, watching her every move as she leaned back against the elevator wall, and Eliza gently refused his offered handkerchief. There was nothing that would make her current state better except several baths. Several. She’d need to buy more alcohol to scrub this ink off with, but even then it would probably take days to be rid of the stains. Weeks, even. She probably had new skin patterns that she would never be rid of, an odd sort of newly acquired birthmark. She wasn’t sure how she’d be able to distinguish what was an inkspot and what was a freckle now.

The elevator chimed when it reached its preferred level. Casper preceded her out, waiting for her to find her feet and move forward into the hall. Without thinking Eliza headed straight for the music department lounge, straight for her usual table, for her usual schedule. Casper caught hold of her wrist, angling her towards the stairs instead. “No, no, this way.” 

“I can’t - I have dinner with Ben tonight-” 

“Ab-so-LUTELY not.” Casper put more of his weight behind his insistence of going up the stairs, and reluctantly Eliza followed through. “You’re going home and you’re getting cleaned up and you’re going to bed.” 

“I can’t just-” 

“You’re going to bed,” he interrupted her firmly. “Ellie you nearly fucking died. Home. Now.”

“Okay…” She sighed, exhausted but disappointed. She’d been looking forward to her evening all day, looking forward to the growing normalcy of their nights spent having dinner and playing music. It was like something she might have done with her family when they were still talking, dancing while the fiddle played, spending late nights drinking over-brewed coffee and playing rummy - the normalcy of it felt like it slotted so neatly into her life, felt like it belonged there. It was comforting. She could really have used the comfortable normalcy of it, but she was in no condition to be seen. But she couldn’t just change plans with no explanation… and  _ someone _ needed to make sure Bendy was getting fed. She hesitated to ask but, “Okay but only if you give Ben his dinner.”

Their strange little procession stalled. “What? No.” 

“Joey doesn’t feed him, I think I’m his only source of food-” 

“Are you-?!” The indignity petered out halfway, escaping him with a frustrated sigh. “No, of course you’re serious.”  

“It’s all packed up in the lunch pail, and there’s lemon meringue bread pudding in there. Enough for two~ maybe three?” 

Casper made a frustrated, despairing noise. Eliza couldn’t see him behind her but she knew him well enough to visualize the way his carefully preened and oiled brows had furrowed together over closed eyes while he sought out his reserves of patience. “If you go home and go to bed I will feed the beast his dinner. But just this once!” 

“Don’t you dare call him that.” Eliza steadied herself on the stairs and twisted around to regard Casper. He frowned at the height difference between them, exaggerated by the uneven placement on the stairs, and hopped up a few steps to be more level with her. “You have to be  _ nice _ to him.” 

His brow furrowed deeper in an uncomfortable grimace at the thought. “Fine. I’ll be nice.” 

“You can’t just chuck it at him like a hog in a pen and yell  _ Eat it _ , you gotta be  _ nice _ .” 

“I get it. I get it.” Defensively, he shoved his hands into his pockets, leaning back on his heels with a sigh. “How do you… Does he know where to go?”

“We always have dinner in the lounge by the music department.” She started their climb again, somewhat gingerly, stiff and bruised. “But I’ve usually got my mandolin…” 

Casper frowned at her in disbelief as she eased past him. “You  _ serenade _ him?” 

“I wouldn’t call it a serenade, I just strum a bit…” 

He sighed again, louder, pinching the bridge of his nose before allowing his hand to flatten and slide over the whole of his face. “Alright. I’ll figure something out. Now…” He hurried to catch up to her, linking his arm around her elbow to help her climb, “now come on. Let’s get you home…” 

The ride home was quiet, tense and heavy with unease at the events of the day. Rumor traveled fast, and who knew how Joey would be tomorrow about the whole incident, especially about George and Abigail. Would all of them be fired to better hide what had happened? A little unlikely, she supposed, since everyone had heard about the flooded halls for ages; she doubted much of anyone was surprised that someone had finally gotten killed in those narrow stairwells, just that it had taken as long as it did. But this sort of thing just happened sometimes, not usually in a seemingly safe occupation like an animation studio but certainly in other places. Her cousin Beth had lost a few fingers in the textile mills as a girl, and that was on the more minor side of injuries that occured in that kind of workplace. She worried after the little boy from this morning, quietly hoping his mother would keep him home and make up the lost pay somewhere safer after the incident before something worse happened to him. Drowned or crushed or severed… this was supposed to be a nice  _ safe  _ job… 

Eliza’s thoughts drifted to Bendy, to that clawed hand on her shoulder helping her up to breathe, how sharp they had felt through the numbness and shock. How had he known she was there? How had he gotten to her? She was pretty sure the doors to that floor had been locked when they’d initially tried to open them, and no one was in the office when she went searching for help, so… how had he known to be there? Had he opened the door for them? Was it more of the same sort of thing that allowed him to disappear through the music department’s wall? The same sort of thing that let him move from projector box to percussion pit in the blink of an eye? 

Now, Eliza would be the first to admit she didn’t know much about demons. She knew about the demons the church claimed plagued mankind: the drink, gambling, sex of all sorts, money generally unless they were preaching to rich people, and so on and so forth; she’d never really heard about a demon that would go out of his way to help people. 

Helping people. Heh. Bendy was always trying to help people in his cartoons. He’d had stints as a fireman, a counter clerk, a librarian, and she suspected there was an episode in the works with him as a nurse given some of the Foley work she’d heard lately. That was an unusual sort of thing for a demon to do, wasn’t it? But not Bendy, their Little Devil Darling. He was good hearted, kind and easily spooked. It would make sense in the cartoon for Bendy to save the people that were drowning, but Eliza suspected she’d get scoffed at for suggesting such a thing of the lanky demon lurking about the studio. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Casper was reluctant to leave her, having walked her from the car to her apartment, setting her coat and bag on the chair by the door while Eliza shuffled her way to start peeling off her ruined blouse. 

“Yeah, I’ll be alright Casper.” The thin satin had done nothing to save her skin underneath from being blackened and she regarded her ink stained arms with a bland sort of curiosity. There was still something strange about the ink, the taste of it lingering in her mouth, reminded again of the thick, congealing texture that seemed intent on devouring her from the inside. It itched, it burned, it felt like it had been trying to strangle her… but maybe that was just panic. She did almost  _ drown _ , after all… 

Casper took the blouse from her hands and gave her a little nudge towards the bath. “Alright. I’ll head back to the studio if you’re  _ absolutely certain _ you’re alright because I can stay with you-” 

“I’m okay…” 

“I could call Lily to stay-” 

She took gentle hold of his face in both hands and leaned her forehead down on top of his. “I’m okay. I promise. You can come by after dinner if you want to be sure.” When she let him go, the faint black outline of handprints remained on his cheeks. “I’ll probably still be up anyway…” 

Casper made a small, distressed noise at that admission and she opted to move the conversation along by unhooking her bra. He turned and scurried back to the living room. “I’ll come by but I’ll let myself in, in case you’re sleeping. You really need to sleep.” 

“I will, Casper.” 

He hovered, uncertain. She could hear him shifting his weight back and forth, the scuffle of his shoes on the carpet, the squeak of the floorboards underneath. Eliza threw her ink-soaked trousers into the hall, satisfied with the way the door knob immediately rattled as he took his leave. “See you in a few hours.” 

“Be nice to him, Casper.”

“I will! I  _ will _ !” 

Eliza listened to her front door close, the shuffling of uncertain feet lingering in front of it, and the quiet retreat down the hall. She sat on the edge of her tub, waiting for it to fill with her head in her hands. How could she sleep after the day she’d had? This was the earliest she’d been home in the better part of two weeks, she didn’t even know what to  _ do _ with all these extra hours. How could she sleep, after what she had seen, what she had felt? She could almost still feel it writhing in her guts, flecks of thick black ink hacked up from her lungs. 

The water came up to her neck when she sank down in her tub, but only with her legs hanging out over the edge. She needed to soak her hair, she needed to spend a while staring at the ceiling with the water blocking her ears, muffling the outside world from where she lay. She tried to let the stillness wash over her. She tried to relax, to let herself float there and soak. 

It reminded her too much of the ink pooling around her, enveloping her too quickly, seeming to suck her down into it. The bath water was already pitch black when she struggled her way back upright in a panic and she felt no cleaner for the experience, shivering and wheezing in the center of a dark pool. Maybe a shower would be better. She wasn’t sure her hair would ever regain its texture. 

Copious scrubbing and her entire arsenal of soap and rubbing alcohol later, she dragged her now ashy-grey body to the couch and collapsed face down on the cushions. At least this way Casper wouldn’t have to go far to find her when he came back...

Casper Callaghan considered himself a man of many talents: singing, dancing, writing, swooning, so on and so forth. Demon tamer wasn’t really on that list. Demon tamer had never even conceived of being on that list and yet somehow he got thrust into the spotlight with Red Riding Hood’s lunch pail of chicken sandwiches. He definitely expected the wolf to come breathing down his neck on his trek down to the music department, his footsteps echoing far too loudly in the newfound silence of the studio. Why did Ellie do this every night? It was so unsettling to be here alone, knowing what lurks in these halls, especially considering what happened earlier that day… 

The lunch box landed loudly on the tabletop and he cringed at the sound. Okay, yes, he’s supposed to be drawing out the demon, but he didn’t … entirely want to. He had hopes he could just say  _ Yeah I waited around for a few hours but he didn’t show, I guess he doesn’t like me _ and then go home and have a stiff drink. He  _ could _ say it anyway, and just … leave. He could. He  _ could _ . But Ellie would probably find out, the damn demon would rat him out no doubt. 

Assuming Ellie was actually  _ talking _ to this thing. 

What if it was all in her head? 

Well… no. No he’d seen the creature sitting with her, lulled by her mandolin, and it hadn’t harmed her yet that she’d admit to. 

Casper busied himself setting out the box’s contents and sighed at the lot of it. Eliza really did go through a lot of trouble for this thing, didn’t she? Sandwiches of chopped chicken salad, scalloped parsnips, turnip greens, pickled beets, oranges. Casper let out a small huff, partly of amusement - he really had been missing out by turning down her picnic invitations. And the  pièce de résistance of the whole affair: lemon meringue bread pudding. “She’s gonna go broke feeding this guy,” he mumbled to himself, shaking his head. 

Now… how to get him here to eat it?

He opted to try for the practical option first: “Uh… Bendy?” he called quietly, listening to his voice echo around the otherwise empty lounge. He cleared his throat and tried again a little louder, hands shoved in his pockets. “Bendy? Beeeend-dee.” 

He waited, ears straining against the silence. Only the  _ tick-tock _ of the dancing clock on the wall answered him. 

Were it up to him, he would have just left the food on the table and gone home when the demon didn’t appear. Were it up to him, he wouldn’t have come back to the studio at all; he would be making tea for his friend and trying to help her clean up and get some rest. But it wasn’t up to him, it seemed, and instead he was here, praying this would be quick so he could go and do the things he wanted to already be doing. Lily hadn’t been too pleased to hear the arrangement he’d made with Eliza, so at least if he dozed off while waiting he’d eventually have the company of a feisty Irish gal with a tire iron coming to rescue him.

She’d probably whack  _ him _ with it if she showed up and he was asleep, though. On the upside, that cute brogue of hers really came out when she was mad. 

He’d give it an hour before he called it quits. That should be plenty of time for Bendy to decide if he was going to come out of hiding or not. It was already past when Eliza usually set up down here, surely the critter was hungry by now. 

“Sure does get lonely down here at night,” he sighed to himself, pacing restlessly in the small space the lounge allotted for. He needed something to get his mind off of … everything. Off of  _ everything _ . All the near death experiences and demon haunting and food that he was tempted to just sit and eat by himself - that bread pudding was calling his name and Ellie knew how weak he was to desserts. Surely she’d understand.  _ No, Casper, be strong.  _

A radio resting on the counter could hopefully provide some distraction, fiddling with the knob until he heard music playing. Soulful violin and the swing of a brass band accompanied a crooning tenor, and Casper swayed in time with the music, dancing lazily across the floor while he sang along.  _ “ _ _ We're waltzing in the wonder of why we're here, time hurries by, we're here and gone…”  _

Ah Bing. Casper couldn’t help the thought that Joey would probably be  _ incensed _ to hear music playing that wasn’t of their own make. Joey was … peculiar like that. He liked for them to play mainly the songs for the cartoons, to stick to what was theirs rather than ‘taint the creative processes with outside sources’… whatever that meant. Something something copyright infringements, something something royalty payments. Sometimes you just had to tune Joey out to get any work done and let him be an eccentric weirdo on his own time.  

Casper let his arms rest around his imaginary dance partner, spinning and sweeping them in time with the beat.  _ “Looking for the light of a new love, to brighten up the night, I haaaaa- _ aaaAAAAAAAaaaaaaa-?!” The note found itself stretched awkwardly as he caught sight of the black claws and white glove curled around the door, the dripping horns, the bright white grin peeking into the lounge at him. Casper straightened up quickly, hopping a few steps back to put some distance between him and the creature in the doorway. “Aah- H-hi.” He hastily turned the radio off. “ _ So _ . You’re… Bendy.” 

He wasn’t entirely expecting a reply from the scary, smiling thing, so he wasn’t disappointed when it didn’t give one. He gestured stiffly to the table. “Eliza can’t make it tonight but she asked me to have dinner with you instead.” He watched the demon remain half-hidden by the door, somehow feeling stared at with its lack of eyes. He made another gesture to the table. “Soooo… here it is. I mean, Ellie asked me to be here but if you don’t want me to eat with you I’m more than happy to fuck off if you just say so.” 

“No, that’s okay…” 

“ _ JESUS  _ Christ you  _ do _ talk-” He cringed at his own volume as Bendy shied back behind the lounge’s door. “Wait- wait- don’t go. I’m sorry, I’m just- ...surprised. Is all.” A hand slicked back his hair and he took a breath to steady himself. His foot snagged the leg of the chair, dragging it out from the table in offering before planting himself opposite of it. “Sit. Eat. It’ll make her feel better to get confirmation that you ate dinner.” 

Bendy eased his way inside and Casper suppressed a shudder. Bendy was tall and gangly and all sorts of  _ wrong _ in the way he was built, in the ways he  _ moved _ , but he was perhaps a little thicker in the waist now than he recalled the newly appeared demon being. His form had a dampness to it, the light shining off his limbs as they swayed, seeming rubbery despite the twiggish rigidity of them, like he’d just crawled out of one of the many puddles around the studio; like a fairy tale creature come to drown him in a swamp. Light alternated between bouncing off the shiny surface of a liquid form and being completely absorbed by the blackness of the ink that covered him. The lanky legs were too long, shoved up in his chest as he settled gingerly into the chair like a man at a child’s tea party. Once again Casper couldn’t believe he was doing this, that he was sitting here of his own volition having a picnic with this thing that looked like it lurked in people’s nightmares and ate pieces of their souls every night until they were hollow husks of their former selves. 

Casper picked up half a sandwich and offered a small salute. “Cheers, then, I guess.” 

Bendy sat staring at the table while Casper ate, chewing pensively on his sandwich. Long, sharp fingers and too large, rounded gloves drummed a restless staccato against the table’s edge. The silence stretched awkwardly between them, Casper’s attention almost fixed on the sandwich in front of him while he ate, the clock dancing on the wall his only company. Bendy took a breath, holding it as he warred with himself for a moment but ultimately let it out in an airy rush. “Is Eliza… is she okay?” 

Casper glanced up, an eyebrow cocked curiously. He set the sandwich down and fiddled with his napkin instead, his gaze wandering anywhere but on the demon. “She’s… she’s alright. She’s shaken up, obviously, but she’s not hurt.” 

“I’m glad…” Bendy’s hands rested gingerly on the table, scratching at the surface like they just couldn’t stay still. Casper stared at his fidgeting hands, frowning. Was it scared of him? Or was it just biding its time? Sharpening its claws? 

Gah. Ellie and her strange infatuations… He reached over and shoved the sandwich under the tapping fingers. Bendy snatched his hands back from the table when he felt the bread underhand. “Eat,” Casper instructed a bit more firmly than before. “Ellie is  _ fine _ , she’s alive enough that she’ll have my neck if she thinks I lied about feeding you.”

Casper had expected more appetite from the creature the way Eliza went on about needing to feed him, about how he only got one meal from what she provided, but maybe the last few weeks of being overloaded on her picnics had caused his appetite to wane - he sure didn’t seem terribly hungry or interested right now. They ate their sandwiches in relative silence, and picked a bit at the side dishes if only to prove someone had been there and eaten them. Casper’s own appetite wasn’t what it normally was, stomach tense with worry, and even he could tell Bendy looked  _ miserable _ sitting there with him. What was there to be miserable about with  _ him _ ? He was perfectly fine company… when he wasn’t scared half out of his wits at possibly being the entree of a demon’s dinner course. Okay so his conversational skills were a bit subpar this evening, no jury could convict him for that given the odd events of the day. It’s not as though his dinner guest was exactly offering conversation topics either, except for a brief discussion about how apparently he had never encountered a parsnip before and why wasn’t it just a white carrot. 

“What color do you think a carrot  _ is _ ?” Casper had asked with some mild amusement. 

Bendy hesitated, already knowing by Casper’s tone that whatever answer he gave was probably going to be wrong. His fingers fidgeted with the table’s edge again, scratching anxiously at the coffee and condensation rings that dotted the wood. “...Grreeeyyyy…?” 

Casper snickered, a hand sliding over his face. “Because everything’s greyscale in the cartoon… Right.” He wasn’t sure how the demon managed to convey a sense of sheepish embarrassment with that melting, smiling face. “No, no. Carrots are  _ orange _ .” 

“But then why give snowmen carrot noses if parsnips are white?” 

“I dunno, maybe they’re more expensive?” Casper shrugged, spearing one of the medallions with his fork to contemplate it. “Whenever I build one, I’ve never thought to ask him what sort of nose he prefers. Not really the chatty sort, snow people.”  

There was a curious, if faint, sense of pride that welled up to hear the demon chuckle. 

Sighing, Casper packed away the rest of the dishes and laid out the bread pudding between them. Two spoons were held out in offering for him to choose from like the worst magician’s deck of cards. “Look, I know you’re worried, and I’m worried too, but if there’s one thing that makes a bad day better it’s dessert, and Ellie will know that we’re worried and fuss at us if we’re  _ both _ too sick with worry to eat this.”

There came that sheepish expression again. Casper found it strange how the way the ink fell over his face seemed to compensate for the static grin and his face’s seeming inability to emote. Bendy gave another small chuckle, thumb worrying against the spoon’s handle. “Eliza’s face looks kind of funny when she gets mad, though.” 

Casper snorted. “A word of advice, Bendy: don’t  _ ever  _ let a woman hear you say that, she will adorably wring your neck.” He looked left, he looked right, as if scanning the room for potential eavesdroppers and leaned closer, hand held up in a stage whisper. “You’re right though - her face does make quite the scene when she’s annoyed.” 

Bendy giggled, finally sounding like the character he was named for. The sound gave that growing sense of pride a healthy nudge but Casper elected to analyze that at a later date - he couldn’t help that he liked to make people laugh, even if it was a seven foot monstrosity from Hell made of ink and… bone? (Sticks? Pens? Hell, he didn’t know.) It was a trait that certainly helped when writing for cartoons, anyway. Many of the writers had similar playful temperaments, leading to long nights with ridiculous scripts they never submitted because it’d never get past the censors. 

“She makes a face every time she hears Joey’s name,” Bendy continued, prodding at the pudding. “It was kind of subtle at first but it keeps getting more exaggerated.” 

“I’ve noticed that myself.” Casper chuckled a bit. “She’s been real irate with the man ever since you popped up. I guess being around grumpy ole Sam Lawrence all day is starting to rub off on her.” 

“Sammy’s going to be mad about that choir in the script.” 

Casper hesitated, spoon halfway to his mouth. “Script?” 

“The one that Terry is writing. Sammy isn’t going to like it.” 

“And how do you know what’s in the scripts getting written?” 

Bendy fidgeted, seeming to try to shrink into his too-small chair. “I … hear things around the studio.”

Okay, well, that wasn’t unusual. Gossip traveled all over, far and wide, from major developments like people drowning on the stairwell to the minutiae of who’s cheating on their diet. Casper shrugged, following through with his spoon. “What kinda things?” 

“Everything.” Casper wasn’t sure the creature could see to begin with, but he definitely wasn’t looking at him now. “I hear people walking around and people talking about things and … I heard Ellie screaming in the stairwell…” 

“You’ve got good ears, huh?” Nonchalance didn’t seem to fit with the guilty squirming across from him, but he wasn’t sure what exactly it was he was responding to. Bendy seemed upset by it, implying it was more than just …  _ hearing things _ . 

He decided he wasn’t going to make a big deal of it. Bendy had such little interaction with people who didn’t yell at him for simply existing, according to Ellie. Maybe Joey had yelled at him for eavesdropping? Casper went for another spoonful of dessert. “If I could hear everything that happened in a place as big as this studio I’d never sleep - New York is a noisy place.” 

The clock dancing on the wall felt too loud as silence descended between them again, cold and prickly on the senses. Casper cleared his throat. “If you hear  _ everything _ … did you happen to hear what they thought of my audition?” 

Bendy’s fingers flexed nervously. “Yeah…” 

“A super encouraging response,” Casper drolled, nudging the pudding towards him. “Didn’t like it, huh?” 

“Sammy liked it, but Joey said it’s not quite what he’s looking for.” 

“Tsk. Next time, I guess.” 

Bendy’s head inched back towards Casper’s direction. “Are you planning to do other auditions?” 

“Absolutely. I  _ like  _ being a writer, but what I  _ really  _ want to do is voice work. But the more episodes we make, the more characters we have to introduce: minor antagonists, background characters, crowd scenes - so, I’ll get my chance. I just have to be persistent. Eventually my voice will be perfect for someone.” Casper grinned, a bit wryly. “Maybe even a little demon like you.”

“Like me, huh?” Bendy snickered. “Lily sure seems to think you have some  _ devilish charm _ .”

“How do you think you get so many fun tricks to do?” Casper buffed his nails against his shirt, smirking. “Not to brag but I was quite the prankster at my last studio.” 

Bendy’s head tipped slightly to the side. “Too much of a prankster?” 

“That is entirely  _ subjective _ . But maybe a little.” His hands spread in defeat. “I’m glad Joey was hiring.” 

Maybe Eliza was on to something, Casper considered. One on one, the demon seemed… perfectly amicable, if a little strange to look at, or listen to. He seemed genuinely concerned for Ellie’s wellbeing, which did wonders to set Casper’s mind at ease about her conferring with the devil so often. 

He packed away the empty dish and stood, pulling on his coat. “I should get going. I told Ellie I would stop by and check on her after you ate.”

A slamming door further down the hall made him pause. He’d thought the studio was empty by now. Bendy’s shoulders immediately hunched up in defense and he sank further into his chair, seemingly trying to hide against the table. Casper resumed shaking out his coat, a bit more warily than before. “What was that…?”

“Wally and Lacie,” Bendy answered, back to clawing at the stains in the wood grain.

“Oh.” Well that made sense. The maintenance crew wandering around at this hour was nothing to get riled up over, especially since it wasn’t even midnight - early hours yet for Wally, probably. Casper grabbed Eliza’s lunchbox, already hearing the worried scolding he was going to get for not prompting them both to eat more.

“They’re looking for Abigail,” Bendy offered after a short silence. 

“Huh. The accounting office must be working late, then.” Casper plopped his hat on and gave a tip of the brim to the demon. “Well, I’m off then. This evening has been…  _ weird _ , so, thank you for that. I’ll tell Ellie you said hi.” 

Bendy only nodded in reply. Casper wondered at the frightened hunching of the thing before him, wondered what prompted it. A question for later. Ellie was waiting. “You’d best get to bed before those two come this way. Good night.” 


End file.
